Politics in West Bengal has always been a messy affair, usually involving violence. The current face-off between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party is no different. There have been party workers murdered and petrol bombs lobbed . Clashes are starting to occur on a daily basis. And now the leaders have started to get nasty.
TMC head Mamata Banerjee has accused the government in Delhi of “stage managing” the Burdwan blasts earlier this year. The BJP hit back, saying that the TMC’s bank account should be frozen after a number of its leaders were implicated in the alleged Saradha ponzi scheme. On Monday, TMC leader Derek O’Brien said that the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is a “known sympathiser” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, adding that plans like the Burdwan blasts are “hatched at the RSS headquarters”.
It’s important to note, this is not just a government-opposition relationship here. It is also a centre-state matter. Banerjee appears to have decided that, as a chief minister, she can go into all-out warfare with New Delhi, to the extent of claiming the centre has been planning blasts in her state.
Assembly elections are not due for another year and a half and the BJP isn’t going away at the centre any time soon, so why does Banerjee feel the need to poison the well with an administration she will have no choice but to deal with for a while now?
Bengal is not a sure thing
When a state is coming out of a 34-year period of rule by one party, it’s hard to be sure about anything. Banerjee might have felt triumphant about taking the state out of the hands of the Left, but what she did at the same time was to upend decades of established political wisdom. The rise of the Trinamool Congress, a breakaway outfit from the Congress party that played the opposition all those years when the Communists were in charge, was meteoric.
But there is no assurance that Banerjee’s own base, built on the anger against the Left, will hold. The events of the last few months, with a number of senior leaders getting caught up in the large financial scam as well as questions about turning a blind eye to terror, have also made voters question the trustworthiness of the TMC.
The BJP is growing
With more people getting unhappy with Banerjee, and no real alternative vision being offered by the Congress or the Left, the party that is perfectly placed to gain is also the one that has been entering uncharted territory in other portions of the country. Hundreds of Communist Party leaders have been defecting to the BJP, with many saying that it is the only option to fight back against the TMC’s “torture.”
And that growth has been reflected in electoral fortunes. The BJP picked up two Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the General Elections in May, a huge achievement for a party that barely had a presence in the state before that. The vote shares in this year’s elections made the extent of this clear. The BJP managed to snag 17% of the votes in the state, up from 4% in the 2011 assembly elections and 6% in the previous Lok Sabha polls.
Saradha scam scare
A careful look at the extent of the Saradha scam by the Business Standard turned up one interesting coincidence. At a party meeting last year, Banerjee attempted to defend her party after questions about the chit fund company first emerged. “Is Kunal a thief? Is Madan a thief? Is Tumpai [Srinjoy Bose] a thief? Is Mukul a thief? Am I a thief? Are all of us thieves? And, the rest are saints?” she asked, referring to a number of TMC leaders, including herself, all of whom had been associated with Saradha in some shape or form.
Today two of those have been arrested, a third minister was summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the rest could also be hearing from the authorities soon. With Banerjee particularly willing to take an adversarial approach to the centre, it’s unlikely that New Delhi will take very kindly to the comments on offer.
Parliamentary Affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said as much. Ahead of the start of parliament’s winter session, Naidu tried to placate Banerjee saying that the government had nothing to do with the CBI’s actions in the Saradha scam. After O’Brien’s comments about the NSA, however, Naidu has changed his tone. "She is making allegations against the central Government,” he said, on Monday. "It is not going to do anything good to her."
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
TMC head Mamata Banerjee has accused the government in Delhi of “stage managing” the Burdwan blasts earlier this year. The BJP hit back, saying that the TMC’s bank account should be frozen after a number of its leaders were implicated in the alleged Saradha ponzi scheme. On Monday, TMC leader Derek O’Brien said that the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is a “known sympathiser” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, adding that plans like the Burdwan blasts are “hatched at the RSS headquarters”.
It’s important to note, this is not just a government-opposition relationship here. It is also a centre-state matter. Banerjee appears to have decided that, as a chief minister, she can go into all-out warfare with New Delhi, to the extent of claiming the centre has been planning blasts in her state.
Assembly elections are not due for another year and a half and the BJP isn’t going away at the centre any time soon, so why does Banerjee feel the need to poison the well with an administration she will have no choice but to deal with for a while now?
Bengal is not a sure thing
When a state is coming out of a 34-year period of rule by one party, it’s hard to be sure about anything. Banerjee might have felt triumphant about taking the state out of the hands of the Left, but what she did at the same time was to upend decades of established political wisdom. The rise of the Trinamool Congress, a breakaway outfit from the Congress party that played the opposition all those years when the Communists were in charge, was meteoric.
But there is no assurance that Banerjee’s own base, built on the anger against the Left, will hold. The events of the last few months, with a number of senior leaders getting caught up in the large financial scam as well as questions about turning a blind eye to terror, have also made voters question the trustworthiness of the TMC.
The BJP is growing
With more people getting unhappy with Banerjee, and no real alternative vision being offered by the Congress or the Left, the party that is perfectly placed to gain is also the one that has been entering uncharted territory in other portions of the country. Hundreds of Communist Party leaders have been defecting to the BJP, with many saying that it is the only option to fight back against the TMC’s “torture.”
And that growth has been reflected in electoral fortunes. The BJP picked up two Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the General Elections in May, a huge achievement for a party that barely had a presence in the state before that. The vote shares in this year’s elections made the extent of this clear. The BJP managed to snag 17% of the votes in the state, up from 4% in the 2011 assembly elections and 6% in the previous Lok Sabha polls.
Saradha scam scare
A careful look at the extent of the Saradha scam by the Business Standard turned up one interesting coincidence. At a party meeting last year, Banerjee attempted to defend her party after questions about the chit fund company first emerged. “Is Kunal a thief? Is Madan a thief? Is Tumpai [Srinjoy Bose] a thief? Is Mukul a thief? Am I a thief? Are all of us thieves? And, the rest are saints?” she asked, referring to a number of TMC leaders, including herself, all of whom had been associated with Saradha in some shape or form.
Today two of those have been arrested, a third minister was summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the rest could also be hearing from the authorities soon. With Banerjee particularly willing to take an adversarial approach to the centre, it’s unlikely that New Delhi will take very kindly to the comments on offer.
Parliamentary Affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said as much. Ahead of the start of parliament’s winter session, Naidu tried to placate Banerjee saying that the government had nothing to do with the CBI’s actions in the Saradha scam. After O’Brien’s comments about the NSA, however, Naidu has changed his tone. "She is making allegations against the central Government,” he said, on Monday. "It is not going to do anything good to her."
