Assam and Bengal Assembly election results could stir up national politics

Whichever way the elections go, they should energise the anti-BJP parties to act concertedly. But there is no single national party that could play the sheet-anchor of a broad-based anti-BJP alliance

There is unprecedented excitement and some apprehension about the outcome of state Assembly elections in Assam and West Bengal. Although elections are also taking place in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, the results of Assam and Bengal are expected to have a greater impact on national politics. A BJP victory in both West Bengal and Assam, two states with significant Muslim populations, will endorse its image as the sole defender of the Hindus. Legislative discrimination on grounds of religion will be legitimised and strengthen the majoritarian agenda implicit in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) goal of “one nation, one party, one government”.

 

National attention is more focused on West Bengal, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is seeking a third term. Having so far marched to her own drum, the West Bengal CM has now written a letter to 15 Opposition leaders and chief ministers of non-BJP-ruled states. The letter calls for creating a credible alternative to the BJP’s “one-party authoritarian rule”. Its release in the middle of elections shows that it has been prompted by a nervousness about the electoral outcome in West Bengal.

 

Released on the eve of polling in Nandigram, where her fate hangs in the balance, the appeal to stop the onward march of the BJP might also be an outreach to the Left Front and the Congress to transfer their votes to her in this constituency. It is also an appeal to the Left and Congress to help her form a government if she falls short of majority.

 

It is abundantly clear that the state Assembly election is no longer about the governance record of Mamata Banerjee. It is about Hindus, Hindu culture, local cults versus ‘national deities’ and the ‘threat’ from illegal Bangladeshi Muslim migrants. The BJP, for its part, has already had a victory of sorts in West Bengal, even if it loses the polls. If it wins, it would have done so by not only defeating the Trinamool Congress but also decimating the Left and the Congress.

 

However, a win for the BJP in West Bengal could lead to instability in the state. A defeated Mamata Banerjee could make governance extremely difficult for the BJP and confrontational politics might keep the ambient political temperature high in the state. In addition, alienated minorities will go into a deep sulk. The young and restless among them might become prime targets for radicalisation, especially from extremist Islamic groups across the border in Bangladesh.

 

Assam looks like a tougher going for the incumbent BJP government because of a consolidation of minority votes behind the Congress and its ally, the All India United Democratic Front, led by Maulana Badruddin Ajmal. A countervailing polarisation of the Hindu vote could still help the BJP scrape through in the state if indeed all Hindus vote along religious lines. However, this assumption ignores the deep unhappiness of the native Assamese with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which allows Bengali-speaking Hindu migrants from Bangladesh to acquire Indian citizenship.

 

Having earlier whipped up emotions on illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, the BJP this time is hard put to sideline the CAA as an election issue in Assam. Local sentiment against CAA on the other hand has led to the formation of two new regional political parties – the Raijor Dal of Akhil Gogoi and Assam Jaitya Parishad led by Lurinjoti Gogoi. The two parties are contesting the election jointly in an anti-CAA alliance. The Assam result will be seen as an endorsement or rejection of the CAA central to BJP’s politics.

 

How will the election results in these two states reshape national politics? The BJP’s victory in the Bihar elections in November 2020 emboldened the Narendra Modi government at the Centre to harden it stance on the CAA and acted as an indirect endorsement of its hardline Kashmir policy. A double victory in Assam and West Bengal might then signal a dim future for the ongoing farmers’ agitation.

 

Whichever way the election results go, they should energise the anti-BJP parties to act concertedly. But there is no single national party that could play the sheet-anchor of a broad-based anti-BJP alliance. The Congress has played such a role in the past, but it is in complete disarray today, showing no signs of internal cohesion or leadership.

 

No consolidation of the Opposition could take place around the mercurial Mamata Banerjee or the ideologically uncertain Arvind Kejriwal who plays catch-up with the BJP’s communalism to stay in power. Only Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) can bring the anti-BJP Opposition parties together. He played a stellar role in the formation of the Shiv Sena-led Maharasthra Vikas Aghadi government and has shown the requisite pragmatism to keep the disparate alliance of the Sena with the NCP and the Congress together. However, his indifferent health might prevent him from assuming a national role, as also the reluctance of the Congress to accept someone whom it still views as a “deserter”.

 

Consultations between the anti-BJP political parties on how to challenge the BJP have so far not gone beyond submitting the occasional memorandum to the President. Without intensive consultations, no electoral alliance or joint political action is likely to last. The rapid unstitching of the Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka demonstrated how alliances formed without adequate deliberations within party structures were unworkable on the ground.

 

The next test of the anti-BJP coordination in the Opposition parties is not far, with elections due in Uttar Pradesh in February 2022. Unless their survival instincts prompt them to come together, each one of them will hang separately – Akhilesh Yadav who lacks the grassroots connect as well as the charisma of his father, Mayawati who was unable to win a single Lok Sabha seat and has the Bhim Army snapping at her heels, and the Congress which could even lose its pocket-borough of Rae Bareli. As of now, Mamata Banerjee’s call, prompted by her own survival instincts, is the only straw in the wind that anti-BJP parties have. The will to think of a long-term strategy against a formidable common adversary seems absent as of now. Twitter: @bharatitis