Why BJP Lost In Bengal ? 12 Key Reasons which were misappropriated.
Analysis of the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) Election Results.
Why the BJP didn’t do as well as expected.
Deep Biswas
(Writer and Researcher, Terrorism and Religious Persecution)
Samaj Vikas Samvad
New Delhi,
Why BJP Lost In Bengal ? 12 Key Reasons which were misappropriated, BJP Lost In Bengal-12 key Reasons,
Muslims voted En Masse.
- 1) Muslims voted En Masse.
This one is no rocket science,
but it still came off as a surprise, due to the sheerness of it. Muslims of Bengal absolutely rubbished the likes of the Left-Cong-ISF coalition;
who managed to win only 1 seat while Owaisi’s AIMIM managed to win nothing.
It is pretty clear the Muslims of Bengal took this election as a fight for survival and outwitted all schemes of breaking the Muslim votes.
Unofficially they’re about 35% (official estimate 30%) of the total population of WB and are the majority in the districts of Malda(52%), Murshidabad(67%),
and Uttar Dinajpur(50%+) where the BJP has lost to TMC 4:8, 2:18, and 2:7 respectively.
BJP has also lost badly in districts with significant Muslim populations like South 24 Parganas (36%), Birbhum (37.5%), N 24 PGS (26%), Howrah (27%) where they lost 30:0, 10:1, 28:5, and 16:0 respectively.
However, the bad performance of the BJP has not always been dependent on the Muslim population.
They’ve done better in Nadia(27% Muslim) and Cooch Behar (26% M) as they’ve just overcome TMC at 9:8 and 7:2;
while they’ve lost in Purba(15% Muslims) and Paschim Medinipur (11% M) by 7:9 and 2:13.
The loss at Paschim Medinipur can be derived simply as the failure of the party whether organizationally or other and not because of the demography.
However, the BJP has done quite well in districts with less than 10% Muslim population e.g.
Darjeeling, Bankura, and Purulia and also in most of the northern districts e.g. Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri.
Why BJP Lost In Bengal? 12 Key Reasons were misappropriated.
See the list below for district-wise results with demography (results only for TMC and BJP comparison, doesn’t include other parties) –
District MuslimPop% TMC BJP
Murshidabad 68-69……….. … 18……. 2
Malda 53-54……….. …. 8…….. 4
N Dinajpur. . 52-53…. …….. .. 7……. 2
Birbhum 38-39……….. …..10….. 1
S 24 PGS .. 37-38……….. …. 30….. 0
Nadia.. ……… .. 28-29…………… 8… .. 9
Howrah……. .. . 28-29…………… 16….. 0
N 24 PGS. ……. 27-28…………. .. 28…. 5
CoochBehar.. . 27-28………….. 2…… 7
E.Bardhaman…. 27-28…………….. 9…… 7
S Dinajpur .. 26-27……. …….. 3…… 3
Kolkata…………. 22-25…………… 11…. 0
Hooghly………… 17-19…………… 14… 4
E.Medinipur…… 16-17……… …. 9….. 7
W.Bardhaman…. 15-16………….. 6…… 3
Jalpaiguri….. …. 13-14………….. 3….. 4
W.Medinipur….. 12-13………….. 13…. 2
Bankura………….. 9-10……………. 4…. 8
Purulia……………. 8-9…. … ……. . 3…. 6
Darjeeling………. 6-7……… ….. .. 0…. 5
Kalimpong………. Unknown….. . 1… 0
Alipurduar………. Unknown…….. 0… 5
Jhargram………… Unknown…. … 4… 0
Area-wise inconsistent performance.
- 2. Area wise inconsistent performance:
As the reader can clearly see from the above table that the BJP has done well in 2 districts of the ‘Jangalmahal-Medinipur region’ of Bankura and Purulia while failing to score in Jhargram.
They’ve put up a good fight in East Medinipur, owing to the Adhikari family (Suvendu) but have lost while
they’ve barely managed to stay alive in West Medinipur with 2 seats while TMC has bagged 13.
BJP has done mostly well in the Northern hilly region where they’ve defeated TMC in 4 out of 8 districts quite convincingly and
also put up a decent tally in Malda, a district with a high Muslim population.
In South Dinajpur, both the parties have tied with 3 seats each.
In the Central region, BJP has suffered a massive defeat as they’ve lost 10-1 in Birbhum,
the den of the social media man-bear Anubrata Mandal.
They’ve lost in both the Bardhamans quite convincingly and have failed to score in Purba Bardhaman, which is a little surprising. But just a little.
They’ve been bamboozled in Murshidabad, which is no surprise but have just toppled TMC in Nadia.
The most shocking results have come from the greater Kolkata region which includes Kolkata, North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah, and Hooghly,
where they’ve not disturbed the scores in 3 districts e.g. Kolkata, S 24 PGS, and Kolkata.
In N 24 PGS they’ve managed only 5 against TMC’s 28 and 4 in Hooghly out of 18. The one-sided result in favor of TMC,
in these 5 districts (especially Kolkata, Howrah, and S 24 PGS) raises the question of foul play on many levels.
In spite of the presence of so much central force, there has definitely been some foul play by the TMC leading to this seemingly humiliating defeat.
Arrogant and inadequately ignorant Local leadership.
Why BJP Lost In Bengal? 12 Key Reasons were misappropriated.
Analysis of the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) Election Results:
Why the BJP didn’t do as well as expected.
The BJP must also question their less than average leadership, their inadequate organizational level,
their internal conflicts owing to the inclusion of some controversial figures from the TMC,
their utter dependence on Modi-Shah(external/central leaders), and
bad relationship with the supporters and karyakartas & their families post 2019 Lok Sabha.
People in several regions have lost faith in the Bengal BJP because of their leaders’ arrogance and
callous attitude towards their supporters and karyakartas.
I, on a personal level, can attest to this.
I used to attend BJP on the ground till I found out that they don’t care about their injured karyakartas and rally attenders.
The top-level leaders are selfish cowards who would hand themselves over to the police right before the lathi charge, and
leave their karyakartas and supporters on their own to take a beating.
This selfish and cowardly attitude has been shown by them during the post-poll violence as well.
This is an issue they must fix immediately if BJP is to get back on track before 2026.
Marginally Low Voter Turnout.
- 4. Low Voter Turnout.
According to some polls, the Muslim voter turnout this Bidhan Sabha has been 94% while the Hindu voter turnout has been only 65%.
Those remaining 35% Hindu voters may have consisted of a substantial number of BJP supporters,
who did not go out to vote because of the rise in Covid cases in April is a strong probability.
Sabotage by Angry local Karyakartas.
- 5. Sabotage by Angry Karyakartas
Disappointed and angry karyakartas have sabotaged BJP votes in some places and themselves have either voted NOTA or TMC just to teach the party a lesson.
Their behavior is not unjustified as the party has done them much injustice by including TMC gundas who have previously bloodied the karyakartas and harassed and bullied them.
The BJP must remember, the house is made of bricks and not the other way around.
The party will only stand if the karyakartas are standing.
Karyakartas make the party and not just leaders. No base, no superstructure.
Importing MLAs or leadership didn’t help much.
6. Buying MLAs or leaders doesn’t help.
BJP had done this in Delhi before, where they had bought a bunch of AAP MLAs before the election but the seat change was negligible.
People don’t vote for leaders alone especially when it comes to Mamata Banerjee’s party in Bengal.
A whole load of Bengal people votes simply because of Mamata Banerjee,
no matter which individual they’re voting for in a single constituency.
Hence buying or hiring TMC leaders has not been helpful in most cases.
Prashanta Kishore’s “Queen Sacrifice”.
- 7. Prashanta Kishore’s “Queen Sacrifice”.
Why BJP Lost In Bengal? 12 Key Reasons were misappropriated.
Prashanta Kishore has been a key factor in this election.
He has played several mind games as well as strategy games to get TMC through by a large margin.
One of these strategies is his amazing queen sacrifice in Purba Medinipur’s Nandigram,
where he made Mamata Banerjee face off against the “gaddar” Suvendu Adhikari.
The Adhikari family put their entire focus on Nandigram and were less than present in the other constituencies.
This resulted in Adhikari defeating Banerjee by a narrow margin of around 2000 votes while losing Purba Medinipur 7-9.
BJP Lost In Bengal-12 key Reasons – The Shootout.
- 8. The Shootout.
The Sitalkuchi incident may have influenced the votes in the 5th-8th phase.
After the central force(CISF) shot down 4 local goons who had arrived to harass and bully the voters with ‘lathis’ or knobsticks.
Some people raised this as a humanitarian issue.
Even though the BJP won in Sitalkuchi, there is a chance it may have turned people against the BJP after April 10th,
especially since their unintelligent leaders decided to run their mouths about it.
The many prakalpas offered by Mamata Banerjee.
- 9. The many prakalpas offered by Mamata Banerjee.
While the Bengal BJP only highlighted the promises made by Modi to be fulfilled in the future,
Banerjee actually did it in the present. She came up with several prakalpas (since 2015-16) like Kanyashree, Yuvashree, Khadya Sathi, Swastha Sathi, etc.
She also launched several other schemes like Swastha Sathi, Khadya Sathi, etc., and
has slyly managed to take credit for several central government schemes.
The “5 takay dimbhaat” prakalpa which included rice, vegetables, dal, and egg curry for just Rs.5/- was a big hit among the subaltern population.
The Kanyashree campaign might have successfully broken up the female Hindu votes in her favor,
just like the ban on triple talaq is said to have gained BJP the Muslim woman’s vote.
BJP Lost In Bengal-12 key Reasons – The Issues that BJP failed to grab.
- 10. The Issues that BJP failed to grab
Issues have always rocked Bengal.
In the 70s it was the Communist-Socialist issue and the refugee issue that handed CPIM the ignition keys to Bengal in 1977.
While it was the Singur-Nandigram issue of 2007 that made Mamata Banerjee the CM in 2011.
There have been several issues in Bengal during the reign of Banerjee but the unworthy leaders of Bengal BJP have failed to make use of any.
One of the most noteworthy issues the Bengal BJP failed to grab is the school shootout incident of Darivit (North Dinajpur) which
claimed the lives of 2 young boys Rajesh and Tapas, who were shot dead by Banerjee’s police.
But Mamata Banerjee is no fool.
She used the covid-19 pandemic issue as a way to gain political mileage as she promoted herself as a caring leader during the awareness campaigns early on.
The People of Bengal were in general upset with the BJP government for the Fuel Price hike.
- 11. The People of Bengal were in general upset with the BJP government.
Why BJP Lost In Bengal? 12 Key Reasons were misappropriated.
The people of Bengal are quite upset about the hike in petrol and gas prices in recent years and,
the so-called bhakts were not helping the cause either with their silly explanations like tomatoes are cheap, put tomato puree in your oil tank.
Excessive trolling of the general public and branding them as deshdrohi etc., upon questioning the central government’s policies have angered a lot of people.
The vaccine drama hasn’t done any good to the BJP either.
Different prices for the same vaccine have raised many eyebrows and may have affected the ballots in general,
the likes of which we’ve seen in the UP Panchayat elections as well,
where the BJP hasn’t done well in Varanasi and Ayodhya either.
BJP Lost In Bengal-12 key Reasons – The Outsider Theory is placed well By TMC.
- 12. The Outsider Theory placed well By TMC.
Starting with the Garg Chatterjee-led provincial B team of TMC,
the Bangla Pokkho who have been pitching strongly for Bengali regionalism,
the TMC pitched in solidly for “Bengal’s Own Daughter” which struck a chord among the Bengalis as BJP had brought in several candidates from other states.
The TMC has also been giving a pound-for-pound fight and matching BJP’s aggressive politics with counter aggression.
The BJP lost this battle in the end as TMC’s aggression is mostly dependent on goons and radical Muslims from bordering areas while
the BJP relies on the CBI and manipulates the law and order system to throw accused opposition party members in jail before conviction.
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BJP Lost In Bengal-12 key Reasons,
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