Decoding BJP’s Bengal Debacle: Part 1

BJP Failed to Read Bengal-psyche

What’s going on in BJP West Bengal is but normal as Samudramanthan first churned out venom. The conclusive difference is the absence of someone like 'Nilkantha’ Lord Shiva in Bengal BJP who could absorb the toxin himself. The virulence of venom, hence, is affecting Party men of all strata. Acrimonious outbursts of BJP leaders and karyakartas are exposing the Party's internal details, cutting a sorry figure in public. People of Bengal, who were all poised to believe that BJP was the only party to break the fangs of a rogue ruler, are now thankful to Almighty that BJP didn’t win the State. Not that they are happy with TMC, but confused about how to bank on a Party which fails to design an effective strategy in spite of having sweeping public support. 

Number of Votes Didn’t Translate into Number of Seats

BJP truly had decisive public support in 2021 Assembly Election. Otherwise, 38.1% vote share wouldn’t have gone to the saffron party while TMC won the Election with 47.9% vote share. In a State of 10 Crore population, TMC drew only 59 lac additional votes than BJP which is not a huge difference in terms of number of votes. Keeping in mind repetition of names in West Bengal's voters' list especially of Muslim females & the numerical reality that around 91% of West Bengal's Muslims consolidated behind TMC, it won’t be erroneous to state that a good share of TMC's votes are false votes. Hence, real difference of number of votes between TMC & BJP is supposed to be even lesser than 59 lacs. However, the way 47.9% vote share yielded 213 seats to TMC, 38.1% vote share could have yielded 170 seats to BJP had the saffron Party wisely estimated seat wise & booth wise target of votes to fix winning margin in each of the desired number of seats. The Party miserably failed. A substantial 38.1% vote share of BJP remained scattered all over Bengal & failed to translate into number of seats.

Implication of Scattering of Pro-BJP Votes

What does such scattering of votes without ensuring desired number of seats indicate? This perhaps indicates that 2 Crores 28 lacs 50 thousand 710 people of West Bengal voted for BJP not as a result of saffron Party's regular campaigns but of some other mechanism. To understand this 'other mechanism', one has to refer back to Jyoti Basu's time. A brief overview of Left regime would help the reader identify the hot button of Bengal psyche to realize what was the mechanism by which BJP could make their presence felt on the ground of Bengal.

Brief overview of Left Regime to Get Familiar about Bengal Psyche

BJP couldn’t scratch the ground of Bengal during Jyoti Basu's regime, nor during Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya’s, though the latter had better chemistry with Atalbihari Vajpayee which Jyoti Basu never had with any of his contemporary BJP top notch. It was Basu who created a perception amongst Bengal men that BJP is a party of uncivilized, uncouth people of Hindi belt. This propaganda worked. West Bengal, for long, knew nothing about BJP's ideology other than the leftist propaganda about it & a significantly large section of Bengal populace believed the saffron party retained a medieval, back-dated outlook. Communist brainwash was at its best during Jyoti Basu. Using almost the whole academia including people from various streams of study, Basu worked hard in manipulating people’s mind in such a way that a significantly large section of WB men lost capacity to think on their own unless aided. To vituperate Shyamaprasad Mookerji & to keep him unsung, Left & Congress went awkwardly manipulative to erase him off from public memory & to propagate half-true misrepresentation of facts regarding his works. (Why was Jyoti Basu so desperate to keep BJP & Nationalists out of Bengal politics is a separate issue out of the ambit of this Article).

Communist Propaganda Machinery of Bengal: Tagore's TOTAKAHINI

Communist propaganda machinery comprised teachers, professors etc who turned like that PARROT as described by Rabindranath Tagore in his short story titled ‘TOTAKAHINI'. These people formed a subordinate educatio-propaganda ecosystem which practiced to parrot the words designed & approved by the larger leftist ecosystem of India. Better parroting rendered special recognition to these people as eminent academia & the best parrots got promoted to core-group-narrative-builders. As students viewed the narrative-building professors being highly acclaimed by the administration, they became mesmerized by their aura & subscribed to narratives designed by them. This is how students of Bengal, batch after batch, turned leftists and/or communists. Teachers & professors who rejected to be parts of the narrative-ecosystem & tried to speak their own, were heckled, humiliated, demeaned. Majority of students, out of their own approval need, didn’t dare not to subscribe to leftist narratives. They were afraid of social humiliation.

Left Propaganda Got Bengal Mass Intellectually Intoxicated

Many propagandists of this educatio-propaganda system were over-confident people of mediocre merit (barring exceptions) who inflicted severe detrimental effect on Bengal psyche. People of Bengal, under such propagandists, grew haughty but remained clueless about ground realities of West Bengal's steady decline. Tall claims of Marxism & spoon feeding of orchestrated propaganda kept these people politically & intellectually intoxicated so that they couldn’t notice the State's monotonous downslide in all parameters of development. Moreover, the Lefts drove almost all industries away from West Bengal leaving people with limited options for livelihood. As a result, Bengal men chose to assemble beneath the CPM umbrella out of insecurity. As they gathered under CPM banner, Jyoti Basu made a large chunk of these people of ‘lower achievement need’, ‘lower capabilities’ believe that they were no less than anybody. Basu did it in the name of ‘Equality of All’ & by means of ceaseless propaganda. Jyoti Basu, by boosting common people's ego, deliberately destroyed their respect for true learning. The State's decline was inevitable thereafter. A huge part of Bengal populace living in West Bengal thus turned overconfident, egoist & haughty yet naïve & gullible. Out of false ego, such people became harmful for their own families, associates and society as a whole. A man with average merit and inflated ego is more harmful for the society than a complete duffer, they say.

Ceaseless Brain Drain Left Meritocratic Vacuum in Bengal

Left Front made such people their own political machinery, leading to meritocratic bankruptcy of West Bengal. In addition to this, quality brains of West Bengal kept on migrating to other States & Countries generation after generation. The trend began in the sixties & continuing till today. Migration has been almost an aim of life for meritorious students of Bengal leaving the State behind with people of average and/or below average merit (barring exceptions). As only dry fibres are left out after repeated extraction of juice from Sugarcane, Bengal is left with only people of average or below average merit after migration of her best brains year after year. However, since people currently living in West Bengal are haughty & egoist (thanks to Communist-grooming for almost 5 decades) in spite of being naïve & vulnerable in reality, they demand attention & ego massage. All their queries need to be answered with patience and proper elaboration.

BJP's Regular Campaign Was Not Sufficient for Bengal Mass 

The lengthy explanation as above was aimed at helping the reader realize why regular electoral campaign of BJP was not sufficient to convince Bengal’s attention-seeking people. Bengal men were looking for explanations of various different actions of BJP Government at the Centre. They couldn’t comprehend but a bit of Nationalist politics that started at the Centre from 2014 as Bengal had never been a part of Nationalist Politics since independence & saw only populist politics. The State never knew the Nationalist viewpoint of economic management either & hence, bombarded questions one after another in social media challenging various steps taken by Modi Government. They were bewildered about steps like Aadhaar allocation to bovine cattle, Aadhar linking of cell phone numbers, Demonetization, launching GST exactly on July 1 2017, CAA, NRC & various others. Logic of such steps were nowhere near being clear to such people. 

Modi Brought in Conflict in Bengal Psyche

As long as left front regime continued, Leftist propaganda didn’t let Bengal even consider BJP as a political option. However, after Left Front legislature dissolved in 2011 & TMC came in, situation started changing pretty fast. Massive communal riots started breaking out from 2009 (Deganga, North 24 Parganas) frequency whereof increased as TMC came to power. Within two and a half years after TMC’s coronation in West Bengal, Gujarat’s the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in September 2013, was chosen & projected to be the PM face of BJP for 2014 Loksabha Election. This time onwards, West Bengal couldn’t ignore BJP anymore. Bengal could not ignore Narendra Modi and his ‘Vikas Purush’ image. In fact, Bengal people were impressed by PM Modi's aura & persona deep in their mind. However, they learnt BJP was a party of uncivilized, uncouth people of medieval, back-dated outlook. Such contradiction between their preconceived idea about BJP & their own observation of 'MODI, the Vikas Purush', confused a large section of Bengal populace in and out. Whatever lesson these ‘naïve yet haughty’ people learnt as 'standard practice in politics’, Modi walked a path diametrically opposite to that. As a result, out of utter confusion & frustration (seeing rejection of 'their mode of politics’), they felt a kind of blind hatred towards Modi, BJP, RSS & their supporters. From this point, the journey of a few lone Nationalists of Bengal began.

Lone Social Media Influencers: The ‘other mechanism’ of BJP’s Electoral Gain in Bengal

These few lone warriors in the social media stood stout for PM Modi & Nationalism. They kept on answering on their own capacity, with elaboration & rationale thereof, to various queries raised by leftists, ultra-leftists & people influenced by them regarding NDA's policies. Bengal BJP didn’t provide any real support to these social media warriors, rather tried to side-track them. This was the ‘other mechanism’ by which BJP gained ground in Bengal. In the social media, people found a handful of lone warriors who could clear most of their doubts. A large section of Bengal populace knew BJP through these social media ids.

Did BJP IT Cell Perform Well in Bengal? 

While BJP's IT cell kept on posting various infographics about BJP’s achievements, Bengal-leaders’ daily routine etc, lone social media influencers pressed the hot button of Bengal psyche. IT Cell failed to identify & address the real queries of Bengal people. While they required answers to all their WH questions (what, how, when, which & especially WHY) about NDA policies, BJP IT Cell didn't / couldn’t cater to those requirements of theirs. The lone social media influencers did that work. For example, while TMC was shrieking in demand to postpone launch of GST up to September & Centre remained determined for launch in July 1 2017, people started asking why such desperation for July launch. Did BJP IT Cell provide comprehensive answer to this query? Could they counter corresponding negative propaganda? The answers are in negative. However, lone social media influencers responded to such queries. Not that these lone warriors are quite in cohesion with each other. They too are divided in lobbies & indulge in conflict of opinion with each other. However, each one of them is a Nationalist to the core having his/her own strong points. All of them have decent follower base whom they by and large kept satisfied with cerebral & informative inputs. This ‘other mechanism’ strengthened BJP’s ground in Bengal.

Modus Operandi of Lone Social Media Influencers

Independent social media (not BJP's IT Cell)  got the Bengal ground stronger for BJP from after 2014. This statement may be corroborated with BJP's performance in West Bengal in 2014 Loksabha Election when the saffron Party got only 2 Loksabha seats while in 2019, the number went up to 18. The prime reason of such growth was Prime Minister Modi himself followed by the contribution of lone social media warriors who aggressively & comprehensively addressed all relevant burning issues & countered opposition propaganda against those. How to say with confidence that BJP’s gradual gain in Bengal was due to Modi Magic & an active social media support? Electoral data corroborates this claim. In 2009 Loksabha, BJP got one seat & 6.14% vote share in West Bengal while in 2014, BJP got 2 seats and 17.02% vote share. Neither Dilip Ghosh nor Mukul Roy worked for BJP before 2014 Loksabha Election, yet Bengal rendered 177% jump in vote share for BJP. This was attributable to NaMo Effect. While in 1999 Loksabha BJP grabbed 11.3% vote share from West Bengal after which Atalbihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister, BJP got 17.02% vote share in 2014 which was more than 1999’s. While Atalbihari Vajpayee was a popular leader in West Bengal, NaMo was proven more popular than Vajpayee in terms of vote share. In 2019 Loksabha, BJP’s vote share further increased to 40.64% demonstrating a 138% jump over 2014 which is, however, lesser than vote share growth in 2014 over 2009. As Mukul Roy of TMC joined BJP in November 2017, many of his followers tried to transfer the credit of BJP's bagging 18 Loksabha seats to his account. However, Mukul Roy factor seemed to have camouflaged the contribution of the real heroes— the lone social media influencers of West Bengal. BJP IT Cell & its social media-warriors whom Shri Amit Shah calls CYBER YODDHA, campaigned at length with videos, news shots etc. However, they could not carry out the 'objection handling' part which is the major factor in West Bengal election. Nor could they cut through the incessant false propaganda fielded by LEFT-TMC-CONGRESS trio. On the other hand, the independent social media influencers, keeping Prime Minister Modi & his aura at the backdrop, did all those which BJP IT Cell could not. These lone warriors entered groups dominated by Communists & ultra-leftists (who are, in reality, associates of TMC) to run discussion threads with people who had almost no idea of Nationalist politics. Common mass of Bengal intensely observed those stormy discussions & gradually started perceiving the Nationalist paradigm, eventually leaning towards BJP.

BJP Ignored Nationalists During Poll Time 

While selecting candidates for Assembly Election, 2021, BJP didn’t select anyone from amongst the social media warriors. Instead, the saffron Party generously included ex-TMC turncoats. While a large section of Bengal populace knew BJP through certain social media ids, State BJP leaders refused to recognize them during poll time. While West Bengal CM, in many of her speeches expressed disgust & annoyance over pro-BJP social media functionaries, BJP Bengal leaders often tried to demean those who built pro-BJP public opinion over social media. Approximately 22% of Bengal's electorates & 31% of her Hindus abstained from voting. A major cause thereof is erratic behaviour of State BJP leaders during candidate selection. 

Film Actresses Became Priorities

Bengal leaders chose Bengali Film Actresses, Srabonti Chatterjee, Payel Sarkar & Tanusree Chakraborty as candidates. While these actresses had no experience in politics & were chosen based on their fame & glamour value, it was no less than a communication from BJP Bengal leaders that BJP was practically non-existent in the corresponding constituencies which was contrary to reality. While many pro-TMC people were frustrated of TMC this time & wanted to cast for BJP, candidate-choice by the saffron Party frustrated them even more. 'BJP didn’t take Bengal seriously', they deduced. Moreover, selection of glamour queens having zero experience in politics caused face loss of BJP Karyakartas of those areas in front of common voters. By means of candidate-choice, Bengal BJP leaders demoralized its karyakartas. It was an indirect communication to them that they were worse than even those politically naïve actresses & hence were not chosen as poll candidates. Such blatant insult to local BJP karyakartas didn’t go down well. (to be continued… )