BJP icing on Mamata cake

Devadeep Purohit, TT, Calcutta, Aug. 17: Bolly heart-throb Armaan Malik sang, actress Nusrat Jahan danced and Mamata Banerjee was at her jovial best at a Calcutta police programme this evening.

The occasion was coincidental but the chief minister's mood was set hours earlier when the Trinamul Congress scooped up 140 of the 148 wards in seven civic bodies that went to the polls on Sunday. On a pitch littered with several ducks in the Opposition camp, Mamata's party has pulled off a success rate of 94.5 per cent.

The big picture masked the surge of the BJP in two pockets of north Bengal, which is being seen as an early sign that the polarisation plank might be fetching some dividends.

The rise of the BJP up to a point should be good news for Mamata, especially since the party seems to be eating into the space of the Left and the Congress in Bengal.

If that is the biggest takeaway from the civic polls, the result also suggests that the BJP's influence remains confined to the hills (largely because of the support of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha), border areas and some urban centres. This means achieving the critical mass to defeat Trinamul is still a long haul for the ruling party at the Centre.

"This is a victory of the people. Those who had been jumping up and down over the third, fourth, fifth places, I noticed that some got 0.1 per cent (votes), others did not get even one or two seats," Mamata said while she was leaving for Netaji Indoor Stadium to attend the police event.

The barb was aimed at the Opposition parties that faced virtual decimation as the Trinamul juggernaut rolled from Durgapur to Dhupguri. (See chart)

The Opposition cried foul and blamed the one-sided result on alleged large-scale vitiation of the poll process owing to an "inert" state election commission.

Given Trinamul's margins of victory in places like Durgapur and Haldia - in ward 17 in Haldia, the Trinamul candidate bagged 99.2 per cent votes and in ward 39 in Durgapur, the ruling party nominee got 91.56 per cent votes - the Opposition allegation cannot be dismissed outright.

The CPM and the Congress could not reach their supporters to the polling booths in several places. An exception was the BJP at Dhupguri in Jalpaiguri and Buniadpur in South Dinajpur, from where the number of complaints was fewer than that from the other civic bodies.

"The conditions were the same for all the Opposition parties but it seems only the BJP could take on, at least in some places, the might of Trinamul," said political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty.

Although the BJP got only six seats - 4 per cent of the number of wards - its state leaders were ecstatic. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh was quick to claim that his party had emerged as the "main Opposition" in Bengal now "despite vote loot by Trinamul".

Preliminary calculations put the BJP's vote share in the seven civic bodies at 18.08 per cent. But the figure - arrived through a method of average - does not capture the party's stellar show in Dhupguri (41.7 per cent) and Buniadpur (27.9 per cent). In Panskura, in south Bengal, the BJP has got 16.9 per cent votes.

The other two civic bodies that voted were Cooper's Camp in Nadia and Nalhati in Birbhum.

"It seems that the plank of polarisation is working in parts of north Bengal, which is good news for the BJP.... They are not only getting the support of the GJM, the tribal communities also seem to be rallying around the saffron camp," said Chakraborty.

Given Bengal's demography - with nearly 30 per cent Muslim voters - the BJP's rise by penetrating into other Opposition parties' support base is the most favourable political development for Mamata.

However, over the past year or so, the BJP has managed to turn adversity into advantage and gained from splits in the ruling parties in other states. "Wait for some more time and you will see Trinamul leaders making a beeline for us," said a BJP insider, recalling the party's pledge to unseat Mamata by 2021.

Such possibilities - inorganic growth in corporate parlance - still seem to be distant in a party built around the cult of Mamata.

The other route - organic growth - is equally, if not more, difficult.

"Mamata's biggest success is creating a client-patron relationship with the voters by showering benefits and doles.... The BJP has to dangle an alternative to that and also deliver to win over the voters," said Chakraborty.

Team Narendra Modi-Amit Shah has a tough task cut out for them.