Pratim Ranjan Bose
Tutiar Kuthi under Nayarhat Panchayat in Dinhata Assembly segment in
Coochbehar has 85 per cent Muslim population, higher than the district average
of 25.5 per cent (Census, 2011). With 25 per cent illiteracy, this border
district in North Bengal is among the most backward in the State.
In the 2019 general election, BJP got 73 per cent votes at Nayarhat where
the party doesn’t even have many activists.
This was surely not an overwhelming trend. At Muslim-majority Chhoto
Goroljhora in the same Assembly segment, BJP got a total of 16 votes in two
polling stations. However, there is little doubt that support from a section,
helped BJP to win Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat with 48 per cent votes.
This is not the first time Muslims voted for BJP. According to CSDS-Lokniti
post-poll survey, BJP got eight per cent of total Muslim votes in 2014. The
ratio was maintained in 2019 election which took the shape of a referendum on
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, CSDS-Lokniti says, in West Bengal, where BJP’s share of Muslim
votes went up from two per cent to four per cent.
This is striking because, BJP barely had a presence in the State until
recently, and the ruling dispensation of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress
has left no stone unturned to “appease” Muslim voters. Communal tension was
steadily rising in the State since 2011 when Banerjee came to power.
Banerjee strategy was partly successful. She got more Muslim votes than in
2014. But, her government became hugely unpopular due to the gross failure of
the law and order and all-pervading corruption. The partisan approach to a
section of the population added fuel to the fire.
Interesting trend
Apparently, therefore, a section of Muslims dumped the partisan politics
and joined the mainstream in voting against the misrule of the Banerjee-led
Trinamool government. With Left and Congress lacking strength, voters picked up
BJP as a viable alternative.
This central theme was aided by many local factors.
For example, the NRC (National Registrar of Citizens) debate had an impact
in Cooch Behar. And as in Assam (which has 34 per cent Muslim population
against 28 per cent in Bengal), the focal point of the debate shifted to
natives versus outsiders or migrants.
The Muslim-majority border districts of Malda (51 per cent) and Murshidabad
(66 per cent) always had a distinct voting pattern. In the past, they were
Congress bastions. In 2019 BJP won Malda North, narrowly lost Malda South and
finished second in Jangipur.
NRC was a non-issue here. Voters rejected Mamata’s brand of politics that
offers little space to the Opposition. Even Muslim appeasement became an issue
here. BJP candidate Mafuza Khatun at Jangipur (Murshidabad) was most vocal
about it. She got 24 per cent vote.
Birbhum (37 per cent Muslim) in South Bengal is one of the most
conflict-ridden districts of West Bengal. In 2015, a Muslim village changed its
allegiance from CPM to BJP to survive the onslaught on Trinamool. In 2018, the
opposition couldn’t field a single candidate in the rural body elections.
In 2019, BJP got 39 per cent votes against 45 per cent of Trinamool amidst
widespread complaints of booth capturing and rigging.
Joining mainstream
The Muslim vote-bank politics gained momentum in West Bengal since
mid-1980’s or early 1990s. If the
post-poll sequence of events is of any significance, the vote bank politics
will suffer more in the days to come.
Early this month, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blatantly sought the
support of the Muslims to fight out BJP in the Assembly election from the
biggest Eid gathering in Kolkata. To her dismay, a popular cleric reminded the
gathering that it would be foolish to bank on any party. Muslims, he said,
should do better in educating their children.
For Banerjee, a bigger shock came on June 19, when a bunch of Muslim
intellectuals wrote a letter to the Chief Minister reminding her that the
government must not allow criminals “to get away scot-free because they
happened to be Muslims (as is a growing perception)”.
The reaction came in the wake of the recent attack on doctors in a city
medical college by a group of Muslims. The police were visibly slack in booking
the culprits. The State government didn’t condemn the incident and even blamed
doctors (and BJP) for observing strike until the situation snowballed into a
nationwide crisis.
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