Book analyses BJP's 'Mission Bengal'

The entry of Kishor as the Trinamool's advisor in June 2019 has added a further twist to the narrative, with the political strategist coming up with ingenious ideas to help the TMC regain lost ground, the book says. It also talks about the role of West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh in strengthening the party, the influential Mukul Roy quitting the TMC and joining the BJP, the widening fault lines between Hindus and Muslims, and the NRC and citizenship law debate..

With West Bengal gearing up for elections next year, a book attempts to put the poll battle in its historical perspective by examining the workings of various RSS-affiliated organisations and takes a look at the BJP's 'Mission Bengal' to uproot the Trinamool Congress and come to power in the state. "Mission Bengal: A Saffron Experiment" by Snigdhendu Bhattacharya also takes a look at the policies of Mamata Banerjee, the strategies of Prashant Kishor's team, role of West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh in strengthening the party, the influential Mukul Roy quitting the TMC and joining the BJP, the widening fault lines between Hindus and Muslims, and the NRC and citizenship law debate.

The book says, until 2014, the BJP remained a fringe player in West Bengal. "For Mamata Banerjee, the battle was not against the BJP alone; she was fighting the entire Sangh Parivar, as the RSS in Bengal had declared that the Mamata Banerjee government had become a threat to national security and that opposition to its rule was no longer a task to be left exclusively to political parties," it says.

According to the author, about three dozen organisations belonging to the Sangh Parivar were active in Bengal, and nearly half of them recorded exponential expansion of activities between 2010 and 2018. "The saffron camp's push for Hindutva, with 'Jai Shree Ram' as the central slogan, also triggered a revival of dormant Bengali regionalist sentiment, and 'Joy Bangla', a slogan used during the Bangladesh Liberation War, had a rebirth in West Bengal, post-2017," he writes.

The role of the Left, its leaders and workers, added a further twist to the changing socio-political dynamic, he adds. The author feels the Sangh Parivar's battle has not been easy though, as Banerjee's social welfare and industrial policies, focused on micro and small-scale industries, created a large base of beneficiaries.

"If the BJP dealt the TMC a rude blow in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by increasing its tally from two in 2014 to 18 - with the TMC's numbers coming down from 34 in 2014 to 22 in 2019 - the assembly bye-elections held six months later signalled that the BJP might not even be halfway through its Mission 2021," he argues. The entry of Kishor as the Trinamool's advisor in June 2019 has added a further twist to the narrative, with the political strategist coming up with ingenious ideas to help the TMC regain lost ground, the book says.

It also talks about the role of West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh in strengthening the party, the influential Mukul Roy quitting the TMC and joining the BJP, the widening fault lines between Hindus and Muslims, and the NRC and citizenship law debate..