Ma Kali to signal to Left voters, Bengal BJP gets a move on under new state chief

Indian Express

5 hours ago

A day after Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya was named the new Bengal BJP president, the party's state headquarters at 6, Murlidhar Sen Lane in central Kolkata already bore some signs of a shift.
Hoardings with the faces of top party leaders were gone, and in a seminar hall that often doubles up as a press conference room, the backdrop had changed, with the faces of top party leaders replaced by the lotus symbol.
With just under a year to go for the Assembly elections, this is not the only visible change in the main Opposition party in the state. Bhattacharya has also signalled a subtle and more important shift in the party's tactical positioning in state politics.
In his first two speeches, the new Bengal BJP president reached out to Muslims and a section of the Left, tried to maintain a balance between the different factions in the state unit, and invoked the gods and deities of Bengal. A BJP old-timer with a long background in the RSS and built in the mould of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee brand of moderate Hindutva politics, Bhattacharya has his work cut out in Bengal, where the party is grappling with factionalism and maintaining a grassroots presence and has repeatedly lost to the Trinamool Congress in elections.
At a time when the Bengal BJP is trying to unify Hindu votes — raising matters such as the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, the Trinamool Congress's (TMC) alleged Muslim appeasement, and communal violence in Murshidabad in April — and not making that much of an effort to reach out to Muslims, considered Mamata Banerjee's vote bank, Bhattacharya tried to strike a balance in his initial remarks.
'The BJP's fight is not against the Muslims. Those who hold stones in their hand, the BJP wants to replace those stones with books. We want a Bengal where Muharram procession and Durga Puja 'visarjan' procession go side by side without any riot,' Bhattacharya said in his first speech as state BJP chief.
At a press conference over the weekend, he said, 'Ninety per cent of victims of political violence in Bengal are Muslims and their family members wanted a CBI investigation.'
However, Bhattacharya said the BJP was quite capable of forming the government without the support of the minority community. 'If one thinks that without Muslim votes we cannot form the government in Bengal, they are wrong. Look at Assam and its demographics.'
Bhattacharya said his stance was no different from that of Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who has adopted a more hardened Hindutva position, issuing slogans such as 'Hindu Hindu Bhai Bhai'. 'With incidents like Murshidabad happening, there is no difference of opinion. In India, all are Hindus,' Bhattacharya said.
Bhattacharya called for Opposition unity in ousting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and, looking to reach out to a section of anti-TMC Left voters, claimed that Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee ensured that West Bengal retained its identity during Partition, and he was helped in this mission by Communist leader and former CM Jyoti Basu. The state BJP chief credited Basu and Mookerjee for 'saving Bengal in 1947'. However, CPI(M) Central Committee leader Md Selim dismissed the claim, accusing the BJP leader of trying to 'confuse' and denying that Jyoti Basu had supported any proposal by Mookerjee.
Hitting out at those who ran the 'No vote to BJP' campaign ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections, several of them allied with the Left, Bhattacharya said such people should 'drop their masks and march with the TMC to face off against us'.
One of the reasons the BJP was rejected by the Bengal electorate last time was the TMC's success in painting it as a party of outsiders that is more concerned with the pulls and pressures of Hindi heartland politics.
While 'Jai Shri Ram' became the rallying cry for BJP leaders and workers, it did not find much resonance in the state, and allowed the TMC to accuse it of a cultural disconnect and placing too much emphasis on Lord Ram and not on deities from Bengal. At the first event following Bhattacharya's appointment, a picture of Maa Kali was garlanded.
The TMC targeted the BJP over a backdrop at the event that had the images of the Goddess and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Alleging insult to the Goddess and 'sacrilege', TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said in a video posted on the party's account on X. 'The Modi cult has truly lost the plot. In their blind obsession with glorifying one man, they've now committed the unthinkable — placing @narendramodi's image alongside Maa Kali on a @BJP4Bengal event backdrop,' he said.
'This isn't just sycophancy, it's sacrilege. Modi ji is the elected head of a secular, constitutional democracy, not a deity to be worshipped. By elevating a mortal man to divine status, @BJP4India has mocked our faith and insulted our traditions. They scream about 'Hindu asmita' but use our Gods as campaign props,' Ghosh added.
The biggest challenge for the new BJP chief will be a faction-ridden state unit, divided between groups led by Adhikari, former state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, and Bhattacharya's immediate predecessor and Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar.
At the press conference on Saturday, Bhattacharya said he was willing to 'work with all'. Praising Adhikari, he said, 'The Leader of Opposition not only resides in the heart of BJP workers, but also in the TMC. The TMC talks about him from morning to night. Even when they wake up from their sleep at night, they say, 'Suvendu, Suvendu', and then go back to sleep.'
Ghosh also made it clear that Ghosh, who has been critical of the party leadership under Adhikari and Majumdar, was important for the party. 'Dilip Ghosh is not going anywhere. The party will make the right decision. Dilip Ghosh will be used in the appropriate position. He was there, is there, will be there. Jaaye toh jaye kaha (Even if he has to go somewhere, where can he)?'