West Bengal Polls: Mamata Banerjee Can't Underestimate BJP

This election is different. It is no longer simply about governance or welfare. It is about identity, fear, and who belongs.
The BJP has successfully shifted the terms of the debate from what the government has delivered to who the real Bengali is and who is an outsider, points out Ramesh Menon.

The West Bengal assembly elections are being watched with great interest across India.

This is a state that was governed by the CPI-M for over three decades. During that period, it appeared the Marxists could never be defeated. When Mamata Banerjee entered the scene with her Trinamool Congress, riding high on the Nandigram agitation against the forcible acquisition of farmers' land for industrialisation, she proved that they could indeed be unseated.

She has now been in power for 15 years and has emerged as a formidable political force. Yet there is visible anger among the youth over corruption, unemployment, recruitment scams, and governance failures.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has launched an aggressive campaign to oust her. It will not be easy even for the powerful, cash-rich party that rules India.

Over the years, Mamata has perfected the art of direct welfare delivery, especially to women and those below the poverty line, building a loyal army of beneficiaries. Her welfare ecosystem covering programmes like Lakshmir Bhandar, Kanyashri and Swasthya Sathi, has created deep loyalties in rural Bengal.

These schemes yielded significant dividends in the 2021 assembly elections, when the TMC secured 48% of the votes against the BJP's 38%, winning 213 of 294 seats while the BJP managed just 77.

She hopes to replicate that success.

For the BJP to rule West Bengal, it needs 148 seats to achieve a majority. That remains a steep climb.

One advantage Mamata has is the absence of any credible opposition. Voters have few real choices.

Yet she cannot afford to underestimate the BJP.

In the coming years, it will make an even deeper impact, given its institutional strength, its grassroots workers, and its financial resources.

BJP's Infiltration Narrative

The rise of the aggressive BJP is now exposing the weaknesses within the Trinamool Congress. It is effectively playing on fears of infiltration by Bangladeshi Muslims, warning voters that the demographic fabric of West Bengal is under threat.

The BJP claims that the Congress, CPI-M and TMC have, over the past seventy years, pandered to Muslim voters to build a vote bank, and that Hindus risk being pushed to the margins.

This growing narrative has stirred genuine fears among the majority population, a trend reflected in the BJP's growing support base.

Home Minister Amit Shah has vowed to remove infiltrators if the BJP is elected to power.

Census data show that the Muslim population in West Bengal rose from 19.85% in 1951 to 27% in the 2011 Census. Today, it is estimated at around thirty per cent.

For context, Islam became widespread in the region during Mughal rule from 1576 to 1765.

Before the 1947 Partition, Muslims comprised about 33% of West Bengal's population. After Partition, over 16 lakh Muslims from West Bengal migrated to East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. Notably, H M Ershad, Bangladesh's former president and military dictator, was from Cooch Behar; Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's former prime minister, hailed from Jalpaiguri.

According to the 2011 Census, districts with significant Muslim populations include Murshidabad (66%), Malda (51%), Uttar Dinajpur (50%), Birbhum (38%), South 24 Parganas (36%), and North 24 Parganas (26%).

BJP General Secretary B L Santosh has declared, 'To save India, we have to win Bengal.' The subtext is unmistakable.

Suvendu Adhikari, a former TMC leader now with the BJP, is leading the anti-infiltration campaign on the ground.

In previous elections, anti-Muslim rhetoric did not deliver results, as Mamata dominated the polls. This time, the BJP also hopes to benefit from the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, under which around 63.66 lakh names, approximately 8.3% of the electorate, were removed, reducing the voter base from 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.

The general perception is that many of the deleted names belong to Bangladeshi Muslims who infiltrated Bengal and should be deported. But the reality is more complicated.

Many Muslims of Indian origin, who have lived here all their lives, have found their names missing from the voter list -- simply because they lack the documentation required to prove their citizenship.

The deletions have sparked fierce political debate. Mamata has alleged that the SIR process was deliberately designed to exclude the TMC's Bengali Muslim supporters.

There are, however, Bengalis who quietly welcome the exercise, believing it will weed out illegal immigrants.

What is undeniable is that explanations for many of the deletions remain vague. Elections are increasingly about who gets to vote, not just how they vote.

Identity Politics Overshadows Core Issues

The BJP has made illegal infiltration a defining issue in this campaign. The Islamist turn following the July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh has only reinforced its narrative that West Bengal's neighbour poses a direct threat to welfare benefits, law and order, and social harmony.

The BJP is seen as consolidating Hindu voters.

The TMC is seen as dependent on Muslim support.

These perceptions are reshaping political narratives in ways that are difficult to reverse.

When religion and identity politics take centre stage, the first casualties are real issues like poverty, unemployment, urbanisation, economic growth, and infrastructure. They fade into the background, allowing political parties to avoid accountability and ride back to power on emotional and communal appeals.

The Trinamool Congress faces serious anti-incumbency. Unemployment, deteriorating law and order, governance failures, and sheer voter fatigue have accumulated over 15 years. In an attempt to counter this, the party has denied tickets to 74 of its sitting MLAs.

Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi told voters in 2014 that a vote for the BJP was a vote for him personally, Mamata has told Bengal's voters the same. She knows she is larger than the party she leads.

She is also stressing the need to protect Bengali identity and culture, warning that a party of outsiders will destroy what makes Bengal unique.

The CPI-M ruled West Bengal for 34 years. It was comprehensively routed in 2011, reduced to zero seats in the assembly. It is still talking about labour rights, agrarian distress, and public sector concerns, but it is no longer talking about ruling Bengal. It is fighting simply to remain relevant.

Having gone unchallenged for so long, the Left never imagined a day would come when it would have no representative in the assembly. In the current polarised landscape, a revival seems highly unlikely. Its time is over.

The Congress, once a dominant force in the state, has no meaningful presence today. Its cadres have drifted to the Left, the TMC, or the BJP. It failed to win a single seat in the last election.

Mamata cannot escape the ghosts of her last tenure.

The Sandeshkhali scandal exposed the dark underbelly of TMC's political machine. In January 2024, an Enforcement Directorate team arrived to question Sheikh Shahjahan, a local TMC district council member implicated in the siphoning of food ration funds. His supporters attacked the ED officers, destroying their phones and files.

Soon after, hundreds of women took to the streets, alleging that TMC leaders had sexually abused them and grabbed their land. Mamata was slow to act. Shahjahan was suspended only after he was arrested at the end of February 2024. Some of the lands were returned.

The protests damaged both Mamata and the TMC. The BJP was quick to politically weaponise the episode. A key witness against Shahjahan was later killed in suspicious circumstances.

The scandal seriously dented the TMC's carefully cultivated image as a champion of women's rights -- and it has surfaced repeatedly in the BJP's election campaign.

Another crisis followed. A 31-year-old postgraduate doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata was raped and murdered while on duty. The crime triggered nationwide outrage and protests.

The accused, Sanjay Roy, was a Kolkata Police volunteer employed to look after the families of police personnel at the hospital. Doctors went on strike demanding workplace safety. Medical services across government hospitals were suspended. The Supreme Court set up a national task force to formulate safety protocols for healthcare workers.

What damaged the Mamata government even more than the crime itself was the perception of institutional cover-up, a response that reeked of administrative callousness and political impunity. The case continues to haunt the TMC.

Meanwhile, Mamata has written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar alleging that BJP agents are flooding the state chief electoral officer's office with thousands of fraudulent voter enrolment applications to smuggle in non-residents from other states. The BJP has dismissed the charges. The Election Commission has not responded.

But the allegation has given Mamata a unifying narrative of institutional victimhood -- a familiar and potent tool in her political arsenal. Her parallel charge that the central government has been withholding funds legitimately due to West Bengal is reinforcing the same message.

West Bengal has always been a state of fierce political passions. It threw out the Left after 34 years when it stopped listening. It could do the same to the TMC if people's patience runs out.

But this election is different. It is no longer simply about governance or welfare. It is about identity, fear, and who belongs. The BJP has successfully shifted the terms of the debate from what the government has delivered to who the real Bengali is and who is an outsider.

Mamata is fighting on two fronts simultaneously: Defending her record and fighting to keep her voters on the electoral rolls. It is an exhausting battle, and she knows it.

The Bengal of 2026 is not the Bengal of 2021. Something has shifted. The question is whether it has shifted enough.

Ramesh Menon, award-winning journalist, educator, documentary filmmaker and corporate trainer, is the author of Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff