Bengal has been plagued by decades of misgovernance, especially the violence and hooliganism of the TMC. Incidents like Sandeshkhali woke up the public. Despite these challenges, the BJP has achieved significant electoral victories in the face of terror.
There was a time when it was said, ‘What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.’ This shows the cultural and intellectual strength of Bengal before independence. And why not? Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda, Maharishi Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Subhash Chandra Bose, Rash Bihari Bose, Paramahansa Yogananda, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee…this list of great personalities of Bengal is very long.
Bengal was also the center of India’s freedom struggle. Subhash Chandra Bose, the son of the soil of Bengal, played a decisive role in forcing the British to leave India. But after independence, the fortunes of Bengal started moving in the opposite direction. The situation has become such that now one has to ask, ‘Will Bengal be able to achieve what India is achieving today?’
Bengal suffering from misgovernance
It feels sad to think about the people of Bengal. After facing Congress (INC and Bengali Congress) for 30 years after independence, they remained trapped in the clutches of communists for 34 years. And in the end, after handing over power to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), the people of Bengal fell from the sky and reached a stuck in date situation. Mamata came to power in 2011 by opposing the violence and appeasement politics of the communists, but later she herself adopted the same path.
In other states of India, elections are held on issues like government work, manifesto and development, but there is no such environment in Bengal. There TMC people do not ask for votes, but threaten that if they do not vote, they will see. The situation was similar in Kerala and Tripura during communist rule. The situation changed after the BJP government came to power in Tripura. Even in Kerala, violence reduced somewhat after BJP’s ‘Jan Suraksha Yatra’ in 2017. It is not easy to hide violence in the age of social media, perhaps the Communists of Kerala felt ashamed of this. But Mamata Banerjee did not care about anything. It was not easy to bring about change in such a state, but time accounts for everything.
BJP’s journey amidst challenges
34 years of communist misrule ended with Mamata’s movement in Nandigram. Then BJP was standing with him. His relationship with the NDA fueled the fight against the communists. But after coming to power, Mamata tried to destroy the same BJP. The killings of BJP workers and misbehavior with the women of their families continued. Despite the Modi wave across the country in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP got just 2 seats in Bengal. But by 2019, a large intellectual class of Bengal came towards BJP, which resulted in 18 seats. Ahead of the 2021 assembly elections, Suvendu Adhikari, once Mamata’s right-hand man, also joined BJP. Then the competition became more tough. Despite heavy violence by TMC goons, BJP won 77 seats.
Frustrated with the BJP’s fight, Mamata had openly said in an election rally, ‘Don’t rely too much on the central security forces. After he left ‘Khela Hobe’. After the results came, TMC goons made his words come true. Blood of BJP workers was shed, more than 300 lives were lost. Women were raped and houses were burnt. The atmosphere of fear in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was such that BJP could not even get agents at many booths, as a result of which BJP lost 6 seats and came down to 12.
Events that awakened Bengal
In 2024, a girl was raped and murdered in RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata. The principal and the local police tried to call it a suicide. Doctors protested strongly against this for about 42 days. This incident shook the conscience of Bengal. This was the beginning of the end of Mamata’s misrule. This time BJP gave the ticket to the girl’s mother, Ratna Debnath. When she went to ask for votes, women would hug her and cry and say that we are with you. Now Ratna has become an MLA after winning the election.
The second case which made headlines across the country was that of Sandeshkhali. When the ED team went to raid the office of TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan on charges of ration scam, TMC goons fatally attacked the officials. This same Shahjahan and his gang used to call village women to the party office and rape them. The land of village farmers was made barren by pouring salt water on it and then it was taken over. When people’s patience broke, this protest was led by a courageous woman, Rekha Patra. She has also become an MLA now. Shahjahan is currently in jail.
Along with these two incidents, the killing and migration of Hindus in the neighboring country Bangladesh also woke up the people of Bengal. Despite standing up courageously, a shoulder was needed to fight the TMC goons, and BJP became that shoulder. Activists imprisoned in different cases were brought out and their families were given courage. Central security forces put brakes on TMC’s terror and created an environment for people to vote without fear.
A Kannadiga’s hard work behind victory
Today BJP has won. Shyamaprasad Mukherjee’s dream has also come true. BJP’s National Organization General Secretary B.L. Santosh had said, ‘Bengal is not a political war for us, but a war of civilization. India’s victory lies in Bengal’s victory. BJP has won this battle of civilization. The happy thing is that in this fight to save civilization, a young man from Mudigere, Karnataka, Arun Binnadi, also played an important role. Working as the Organization General Secretary of North Zone Siliguri Division, Arun won 26 out of 28 seats. After talking to them it becomes clear how difficult this task was. TMC goons did not even allow booth level meetings to be held. At such places, this victory has been achieved by standing up to them. It is my wish that BJP’s victory achieved through this hard work marks the beginning of the rise of ‘Sonar Bangla’.
– Rakesh Shetty, Writer