The alleged School Service Commission scam and numerous incidents of violence have engulfed the West Bengal government and Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC). Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Arjun Singh has returned to the TMC. Singh, the Barrackpore MP, is known as a “Bahubali” in the area. While Singh’s ‘ghar wapsi’ is a significant move for the TMC to divert attention from the alleged SSC scam, the strategy is much deeper. The key reason behind this move was to focus on the upcoming panchayat polls in Bengal.
Similarly, Singh’s ‘ghar wapsi’ also raises several questions about the organisational condition of the BJP. He was one of the first TMC leaders to join the BJP and win the 2019 Lok Sabha election. In response to the success of leaders like Singh, the BJP opened its doors to the disenchanted TMC leaders in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly election. But after the party lost the election, the majority of these leaders started to return. Singh is the latest one on this list.
To begin with, it reveals that the BJP's old guard and turncoats are at odds. Second, the party is failing to hold back its own people because the electoral prospect of the saffron party is becoming worse every day. Lastly, there is a growing distrust within the Bengal BJP unit.
Who is Arjun Singh?
Arjun Singh was one of the first Hindi-speaking grassroots level Trinamool leaders in Bengal. His father, Satyanaryan Singh, was a well-known Congressman. The family of Arjun Singh was originally from Siwan in Bihar.
Arjun Singh was able to build the TMC's organisation in the Hindi belt of North 24 Parganas thanks to his Bihar connections, fluency in Hindi, and father's reputation. This immediately made him a close aide to Banerjee. As the party's Hindi wing leader, he was also responsible for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Punjab.
In the 1995 election, Singh was elected to the Bhatpara municipality on a Congress ticket. In 1998, he left the party and joined Mamata Banerjee’s TMC after she left the Congress. After becoming a TMC legislator from Bhatpara in 2001, he won three more elections from that seat.
After resigning as a TMC MLA in March 2019, Singh joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. As a result of his departure, the TMC lost its organisation in the Barrackpore industrial belt and the larger North 24 Parganas region. In the Barrackpore election that year, Singh defeated Dinesh Trivedi to become a BJP MP.
After spending three years with the saffron party, at around 4 pm on Sunday, Singh drove to TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s office. Soon after, the TMC national general secretary welcomed the Barrackpore MP. He was welcomed into the party by Banerjee and other TMC leaders, including state minister Jyotipriya Mallick and Barrackpore MLA Raj Chakraborty — both of whom belong to North 24 Parganas, Singh's district.
How Arjun Singh was losing grassroots support
According to people close to Arjun Singh, the leader was losing grassroots support in the area. When Singh was with the TMC, the North 24 Parganas used to be synonymous with his dominance. Politically, this district is crucial for any political party in Bengal. North 24 Paraganas has around 33 Vidhan Sabha constituencies. There are around 27 municipalities and over 200 panchayats in over 1,600 villages in this district. In the 2021 Vidhan Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress won a majority of the seats in this district, and the BJP got only five seats. Significantly, the BJP even lost six out of seven Vidhan Sabha seats, which come under the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency.
Arjun Singh was only able to hold back his home turf, the Bhatpara Vidhan Sabha. His son won from this seat. Panchayat polls depend on grassroots support. Arjun Singh realised that he had been losing this support to Mamata Banerjee’s party. He also wasn’t sure if he would get a BJP ticket from the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency. Meanwhile, if the saffron party performs poorly in the upcoming panchayat poll, then the BJP will try to sideline Arjun Singh.
Days before quitting the BJP, he told the reporters, “I met our national president, JP Nadda recently and told him about the situation in the state BJP. Dedicated workers are not given their due recognition. Despite being the state vice president, I am not allowed to work properly.”
Manish Shukla murder and Arjun Singh’s insecurity
Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP never had a strong organisation in Bengal. After the 2019 victory, the organisation of the party started to become stronger. However, the BJP’s organisation was mostly based on TMC workers who shifted towards the saffron party for several reasons. But this equation entirely changed after the defeat of the BJP in the 2021 Assembly elections. Alleged massive post-poll violence erupted across the state against the BJP. The party did not have the strength to protect the workers. The Central government deployed heavy security for the top leaders and lawmakers, but the workers were kept alone.
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Several attacks took place against Singh, and his workers started to worry. A person close to Singh said, on the condition of anonymity, “Arjun Singh had repeatedly raised the question of the vulnerability of the BJP workers across the state and most importantly in the North 24 Parganas. The state BJP leadership ignored these warnings and the result can be seen in all the by-elections and local body elections. The TMC, after the 2021 Assembly election victory, was majorly targeting the BJP workers who shifted to the party before the elections. Many of our workers were killed, but Arjun Singh could not do anything.”
Meanwhile, the TMC started to re-build its organisation in the district under Naihati MLA Partha Bhowmick, who is a close aide to Abhishek Banerjee. “The TMC was persuading our workers, and in front of Arjunji’s eyes, the workers were returning to them. If we cannot ensure the security of our workers, then how can we ask them to leave?” the leader asked.
The insecurity of Arjun Singh started just after his victory in 2019. Manish Shukla, one of the closest confidantes of Singh and a BJP councillor, was shot dead on 4 October 2020. The CID started the investigation, but Singh had no faith in the state police. According to people close to Singh, despite his repeated requests, the state BJP did not raise the issue much.
What prompted TMC to take back Arjun Singh
According to sources, the discussion between Singh and the TMC has been ongoing since January of this year. However, Abhishek Banerjee was not ready to take him immediately. But the situation started changing faster than expected in Bengal. The alleged School Service Commission scam has hurt the image of the ruling party. The Calcutta High Court is showing no mercy and is majorly dependent on the CBI in this corruption case. The CBI has been summoning top cabinet ministers and TMC leaders every day for questioning. This entire situation was providing an opportunity for the Opposition to increase their attacks against the TMC.
Similarly, in the past few months, reports of violence have increased significantly across Bengal. The Calcutta HC has roped in the CBI in most of these cases. It is pertinent to note that in the majority of these cases, there are reports of the alleged involvement of local TMC leaders.
Amid all this, the TMC decided to bring back Arjun Singh because this high-profile ‘ghar wapsi’ will get media attention and motivate the party workers with a message that whatever happens in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee will be unbeatable. Finally, there is a growing feeling in the TMC that all these allegations against the party will harm them in the upcoming panchayat election. The panchayat election in Bengal has always been violent and mussel power dependent. If before this election, a strongman like Arjun Singh returns to the TMC, then this will give an edge to the ruling party in a significant number of panchayat seats.
The author is an independent journalist based in Kolkata and a former policy research fellow at the Delhi Assembly Research Centre. He tweets as @sayantan_gh. Views expressed are entirely personal.
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May 30, 2022 at 09:41AM
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