Bengal alleges ‘Delhi’s apathy’ as BJP cries ‘Bengal’s non-performance’

KOLKATA: Rip Van Winkle would not have found too much of a difference in Bengal politics, save the names of the protagonists, had he gone to sleep in the 1980s and woken up on Wednesday.
The party that rules Bengal now accuses Delhi of “apathy to Bengal” to counter the charges of “non-performance” thrown at it by the party in office at the Centre — the Trinamool Congress-BJP political rhetoric sounding eerily similar to the Left Front-versus-Congress war of words of the 1980s.
The backdrop, too, is very similar. The national president of the party in office at the Centre is now on a three-day blitzkrieg in Bengal, covering on Wednesday neighbourhoods that form a part of the state chief minister’s constituency. Mamata Banerjee’s charges against BJP and Amit Shah’s accusations of lack of governance and development against the Bengal government together formed a pattern set in the 1980s when Indira Gandhi (and later son Raj-iv) used to visit the state to dislodge then CM Jyoti Basu.
It remains to be seen whether BJP succeeds where Congress failed but it won’t be for lack of trying. Shah knocked on the doors of voters at the CM’s Bhowanipore backyard to give a call for a change in Bengal, starting from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He described Bengal as the “Modi rath’s” next destination after successive triumphs in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and now the Delhi civic body. It immediately brought out the protector of regional pride in Banerjee, who played on Bengali sentiments of “BJP’s apathy towards Bengal”, much like PM Narendra Modi had played on “Gujarati swabhiman” when, as the Gujarat CM, he was targeted by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in 2007 for being “maut ka saudagar” and “lootera”.
Shah tried to use anti-incumbency on Wednesday, which Banerjee will seek to parry with her party’s organisational network and its “365-day contact with people”. Shah kept listing Bengal’s “negatives” under the Trinamool government — from “corruption” to the “booming bomb factories” and from “vote bank politics and infiltration” to “non-performance”. The Bengal CM played the victim card to stoke Bengal’s “swabhiman”.
Shah’s Bengal tour seems to be part of a well-thought-out plan to tap the sentiments against Trinamool’s “politics of appeasement”. “The Mamata Banerjee government’s appeasement politics is responsible for communal flare-ups in Bengal,” Shah said. He then argued that Bengal’s all-round growth had suffered under the Trinamool regime, citing data on how the BJP government had been releasing funds from the 14th Finance Commission and for other central schemes run in Bengal over the last three years.
State finance minister Amit Mitra issued a point-by-point rebuttal in Kolkata as his CM sought to portray Shah’s jibe as an affront to the people of the state in Alipurduar. “The BJP is jealous. It can’t stand Bengal. Their leaders should speak less and work more. How could they cast aspersions on Bengal’s growth when the state has won the Krishi Karman award from the Centre for excellence in agricultural growth for five successive years since 2012? Name one state that provides free medical treatment to its people,” Banerjee said drawing comparisons with Gujarat to substantiate the deprivation narrative.
“We have been running a host of projects after the centre took away Rs 40,000 a year on account of debt-servicing. Gujarat doesn’t have to bear any such burden. Gujarat is a small state but has four ports. We have only two. Yet, the centre doesn’t give us funds for dredging the Kolkata and Haldia ports. Worse, they are planning to take away whatever little we have; the Tea Board office is being shifted from Kolkata to Assam,” Banerjee said.
Shah also drew attention to the law-and-order situation, referring to the series of bomb blasts in Bengal. “Bomb factories are flourishing in Bengal. It is a matter of grave concern,” Shah said before turning to “corruption” and rubbishing the Trinamool’s conspiracy theory over the Narada tapes.
“Trinamool leaders were seen taking money on camera. What is the conspiracy about?” he asked, hoping the muck of Trinamool’s “corruption and violence will help the lotus bloom everywhere in Bengal”. “We will get the highest seats from the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Lotus will bloom everywhere in Bengal,” the BJP president said.