ELECTIONS - THE MAMATA MESSAGE

Mamata Banerjee has soundly defeated the BJP by winning a landslide majority. And in doing so, she may have shown to other opposition parties how the unthinkable can be accomplished. But it is too early to even think about the right-wing fall

- Riyaz Wani

The poor showing of the BJP in three out of the four-state elections has come as an unexpected setback to the Hindutva juggernaut. More so, in West Bengal where the saffron party appeared set to dislodge the redoubtable Mamata Banerjee. But the two-time chief minister has soundly defeated the BJP by winning a landslide majority. And in doing so, Banerjee may have shown to other opposition parties how the unthinkable can be accomplished.

In today’s India, the BJP has everything it takes to win an election: money, muscle, a piece of vaunted electoral machinery, an ideology that has a deep resonance with a critical mass of people and more importantly an overarching politician in the form of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, enabling the party to win election after election. But in Bengal, all these shastras came to nought. That too despite the fact, that the top BJP leaders including the PM Modi and the Home Minister Amit Shah had campaigned vigorously in the state holding several public meetings and roadshows. The BJP had no answer to the fighting spirit of Banerjee and her commitment to secular values. In the words of her election strategist Prashant Kishor, she got into the pit and fought, unlike Congress, which displays a singular lack of the willingness to fight.

STATE OF CONGRESS

Congress is now in dire straits. The party despite its claim to being India’s pre-eminent secular party has never posed an ideological challenge to Modi. Neither in Gujarat where the party has successively failed to wrest the state from the BJP nor in the rest of the country. The BJP has now acquired a truly national profile and Congress is shrinking by the day.