BJP unable to leverage Sandeshkhali protests

Anti-incumbency against TMC and Mamata Banerjee cannot be discounted. In the end, it all depends on whether she is able to address the deeper structural problems in her party

In West Bengal last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cited allegations of sexual exploitation and land grab in Sandeshkhali to launch a scathing attack on the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He sought to convert local anger into votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Har chot ka jawab vote se dena hai (for every wound inflicted, reply with your vote)."

Just as her leadership of the Singur and Nandigram agitations in 2007 and 2008 catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power, ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front in the state, the BJP hopes to convert Sandeshkhali into a similar moment of reckoning.

However, it has failed so far to convert Sandeshkhali into a Singur or Nandigram, although it also involves forcible land acquisition from farmers. Perhaps the BJP was inspired by Suvendu Adhikari, once Mamata Banerjee's master strategist in Nandigram. He is now in the BJP and is the leader of the Opposition in the state assembly.

At the centre of the Sandeshkhali scandal is local strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, a Zila Parishad member of the TMC. Earlier, he was with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and switched sides when the TMC ousted the Left. Sheikh and his cronies have been accused of land grabs and sexual exploitation of local women.

In Sandeshkhali, political and economic power flows from the control of bheris (shallow ponds for cultivating fish and shrimp). Although land-grabbing for bheris existed in Sandeshkhali from the time of the Left Front government, it took a more aggressive turn after Sheikh became in charge of fisheries as a Zila Parishad member in 2019.

He and his associates would allegedly forcibly lease land for cultivating fish by constructing shallow saltwater ponds on it. Those who were reluctant to lease to Sheikh and his cronies would have saltwater pumped into their lands. This would force them to give in as saltwater made the land uncultivable for years. Nor was rent paid to the landowners. Those demanding it were threatened.

The Sandeshkhali controversy began in early February when villagers from 16 panchayats protested against Sheikh and his associates forcibly turning their agricultural fields into saltwater fisheries. The protests snowballed with women from some of those villages accusing Sheikh and his gang of sexual exploitation – by allegedly abducting them and holding them overnight in the local TMC office.

READ: Sandeshkhali case: Eye on 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP sees an opening

The Sandeshkhali protests touch each of the elements of the political war cry, "Maa, Maati, Maanush (Women, Land and People)", which propelled Mamata Banerjee to power. Potentially, women, forcible land acquisition and the TMC's reliance on a cadre of musclemen should have been a potent mix for political protests. Moreover, the demographic profile of Sandeshkhali -- 30 per cent Muslims, 30 per cent Dalits and 26 per cent Scheduled Tribes – would help any political party to significantly expand the protests to cover the socially marginalised.

Despite this, the BJP has not been able to leverage the Sandeshkhali protests.

Unlike Singur and Nandigram, where land acquisitions were part of the larger industrialisation policy of the state government, Sandeshkhali is more local and smaller in scale. In Singur, the state government acquired 997 acres of multi-crop land to set up Tata Group's Nano small car project. Similarly, the Nandigram land acquisition involved 14,000 acres of land for setting up a chemical hub by Indonesia's Salim Group.

By contrast, in Sandeshkhali, local goons are involved in the land grab. Though they are linked to the ruling party, their infringements do not have state-wide ramifications, as their actions are neither sponsored by the state nor part of its broader industrial and agricultural policy. So, the hope of state redressal remains intact among the protestors.

In Sandeshkhali, the villagers want the police and the administration to protect them from the goons linked to the TMC. In Nandigram, the agitators did not allow the police and administration to even enter the area. In Singur, the farmers frequently confronted the police and CPI (M) cadre guarding the land acquired. In Nandigram, police firing led to the death of 14 protestors. When Mamata Banerjee sat on a 26-day fast in Kolkata to protest Nandigram, the then President APJ Abdul Kalam requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in order to save her life. The BJP has been unable to mount an equivalent agitation in Sandeshkhali.

With the Singur and Nandigram agitations, Mamata Banerjee was able to rally the masses, cutting across class, community and politics. But perhaps the BJP is successful largely when there is the possibility of communal polarisation. In Sandeshkhali, most of the victims and exploiters are from the same community, and it is unclear what the BJP offers to Muslims, comprising 30 per cent of the population in West Bengal. The minority community in the state is quite united and not enamoured by the BJP's persistent targeting of the minority community.

Some BJP leaders are, however, trying to appeal separately to "Muslim women". Even Prime Minister Modi, during his visit to the state, said, "The arrogance of the TMC will break soon. It is confident that it has the support of a particular group, but Muslim women too will now throw them out."

The BJP also seems to lack a strong and unified leadership in the state despite its 70 MLAs and 17 MPs. In fact, the two prominent leaders of the party – Suvendu Adhikari and state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar led separate protests on Sandeshkhali.

This does not mean that Sandeshkhali will have no impact on the elections. The TMC may lose support in some South Bengal constituencies. Anti-incumbency against the TMC and Mamata Banerjee cannot also be discounted on account of its dependence on musclemen in local power structures.

After all, the strongmen that the Left Front had come to rely on moved en masse to the TMC. Local contractors and small businesses in West Bengal function largely on the patronage of the ruling party. The muscle-flexing by Sheikh Shahjahan and his cronies is replicated across the state and impacts governance. Mamata Banerjee has suspended Shahjahan from the TMC, but will she be able to address the deeper structural problems in her party?