‘BJP is the only real party of West Bengal’, thundered Prime Minister Narendra Modi and rightfully so, at a poll rally in Kharagpur on March 20, 2021. “The people of Bengal gave Didi (Mamata Banerjee) 10 years, but she paid them back by giving them 10 years of destruction and violence,” added the PM, reinforcing that Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s values were in the DNA of the BJP. “Yesterday, we got agitated when Facebook and What’s App’s services were down for 45 to 50 minutes, imagine the condition of Bengal. Its Vikas (development) and vishwas (trust) have been down for 50 to 55 years,” added,the Prime Minister, completely exposing the gross incompetence of the Mamata Banerjee government that ruled West Bengal for ten long years. “You have seen destruction by Congress and the Left. The TMC ruined your dreams. In the last 70 years, you gave opportunities to everyone but give us 5 years, we will free Bengal from the 70 years of destruction, we will sacrifice our lives for you,” further stated,the PM.
From CAA to income for every family, BJP’s Bengal poll manifesto leaves out nothing.
The manifesto has a special focus on Bengali culture and women, who have been promised free education from kindergarten to post-graduation level, 33% reservation in jobs and free rides in public transport. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its manifesto,also promised to implement the new citizenship law, ensure employment to one member of every family, set up modern hospitals, spend thousands of crores of rupees for development of infrastructure in Kolkata and various districts,besides supporting farmers, fishermen, tribal people and backward classes.
In the BJP’s manifesto, there is special focus on women, with whom the document starts, and of course,focus on Bengali language and culture,too. The BJP’s sankalp patra or vision document,even talks of a whistle-blower policy for unearthing corruption, three AIIMS-like hospitals in north Bengal region where the BJP won seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and a minimum wage of Rs 350 for tea garden workers. The BJP has also promised to include the Hindu Mahishya and Tili communities into the Other Backward Class (OBC) category,while measures to uplift the lot of two Dalit Hindu communities, the Rajbanshis of north Bengal and Matuas of south Bengal,were also announced.The Matuas are a part of the backward Namasudra community,that can influence poll results in around 80 of the State’s 294 assembly seats.
“In 10 years, the misrule of the TMC has spread only despair. Mamata Banerjee’s vote bank politics includes appeasement,festivals of Bengal,even cow smuggling. She has politicized the administration, criminalized politics and institutionalized corruption,” said the indefatigable Amit Shah,while releasing the BJP’s Bengal manifesto. Some of the salient promises in the manifesto are 33% reservation for women in jobs, annual assistance of Rs 10,000 to Bengal’s farmers, annual assistance of Rs 6000 and mechanized boats for fishermen, medical insurance under Ayushman Bharat scheme, zero infiltration across the international border, assistance of Rs 10,000 for five years for refugees, a literary award similar to the Nobel Prize named after Tagore, a film award styled after the Oscars named after Satyajit Ray and monthly pension of Rs 3000 for widows.
The BJP manifesto also promises a Rs 5000 crore intervention fund for agricultural marketing so that price fluctuations do not affect farmers, a Rs 10,000 crore health infrastructure project, doubling of seats in medical and nursing colleges, 10,000 start-ups with Rs 25 lakh investment in each, BPOs named after Subhas Chandra Bose in each block, Institutions on the lines of IITs and IIMs, Rs 2000 crore for development of sports and special investigation into smuggling of sand, weapons, fake currency notes etc.
Massive discontent against Trinamool Congress (TMC), erosion of left votes and consolidation of Hindu voters are being seen by some political pundits as the major reasons behind BJP’s unprecedented rise in West Bengal.But more than anything else,Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s schemes like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana for providing LPG connections to women below poverty line, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana offering affordable financial services and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for affordable housing,have completely redefined the lives of millions in rural Bengal. It is true that driven by hubris,Mamata Banerjee stonewalled many popular schemes of the Modi government,including Ayushman Bharat and PM Kisan Yojana. However,despite Mamata’s refusal to implement central government schemes,the Modi government,ensured that the fruits of development were not held back.
Though communal polarisation and consolidation of Hindu votes towards BJP is being talked about, we must remember that out of the 18 Lok Sabha seats BJP won in Bengal, there are at least seven to eight seats — Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling and Alipurduar in north Bengal and Purulia, Jhargram and Bankura in Junglemahal region,that did not have sizable minority population. So clearly, communal polarisation was not a factor in those places. What political pundits fail to realise is that a large chunk of the electorate is increasingly moving beyond caste centric and the vote bank politics of appeasement. Besides, north Bengal and Jangalmahal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also won some seats in Gangetic West Bengal like Hoogly,in the Lok Sabha 2019 polls. Of late,mammoth rallies by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at Thakurnagar and Cooch Behar and equally gigantic rallies by BJP’s National President, J.P.Nadda at Nabadwip and Birbhum,are a testimony,to BJP’s growing stature in Bengal.
The Modi government’s phenomenal pace of work is evident from the fact that over 2.36 crore rural and semi-urban people and over 1.06 crore urban people in Bengal have benefitted from the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, that aims to provide universal access to banking facilities,with at least one basic banking account for every household.
Total number of beneficiaries under this scheme is more than 3.42 crore in Bengal.
Again, the range of benefits under the Ujjwala Yojana is also high in Bengal. A total of over 78.47 lakh poor families have received free LPG connections under the scheme in this state,which is the second-highest after Uttar Pradesh. This underlines how the Modi government is truly inclusive in its approach and does not discriminate between States.
In 2018, 55% of West Bengal’s rural households used Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) as the primary cooking fuel,up from 15% in 2015, according to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and that number has only risen further in 2021.
Under the Modi government’s scheme to provide affordable housing,well over 45,671 houses were completed till 2016-17,while 1.6 lakh projects were approved additionally, under the scheme in FY 2017-18. Also, despite embarrassing pettiness displayed by Mamata Banerjee,not befitting a chief minister,Prime Minister Modi ensured that the benefits from central schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission,to build millions of toilets, helped the hinterland and tribal population in Bengal. In sharp contrast,Mamata’s development track record has been abysmal, with no big industrial house setting up shop in Bengal in the last ten years,under her inept regime. Special economic zones (SEZs) in Durgapur,Falta and Salt Lake City,have turned into waste-lands,with crude bomb making factories in Murshidabad,Malda, Gosaba, Barrackpore, Birbhum,North and South 24 Parganas,being the only industries,that have flourished. Interestingly, after obstructing the Modi government’s schemes,Mamata Banerjee had the audacity to repackage some of these central schemes as her own initiatives but due to poor execution skills and corruption of the TMC government,this repackaging exercise back-fired miserably. Repackaging does not work if the intent is mala-fide and needless to add,the TMC’s intentions have always been suspect, buttressed by the “cut money and syndicate culture”,steeped in bribery and nepotism.
Speaking of Mamata Banerjee’s incompetence,there are several instances of how she made failed attempts to clone some highly successful central schemes of the Modi government.The Krishak Bandhu scheme is one such example.The TMC govt, tried copying the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, but the Krishak Bandhu scheme has largely been a non starter.On the other hand,over Rs 1.10 lakh crore has been given to over 12 crore farmers via PM Kisan. 80% of rural farm households in Bengal do not have Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) due to lack of clear land titles and lack of access to information on how to apply for these cards.
Due to the mismanagement and apathy of the TMC government, as many as 215 farmers committed suicide since 2011 till 2019, most of whom were paddy and potato farmers. But the State government did not taken any affirmative action to prevent the same. Last year, the TMC government reportedly procured 42,000 tonnes of potatoes to stabilize market price and provide “fair price” to the farmers. Despite clearance from the Agriculture Department of the State and the rise in potato prices to Rs 40/kg in the open markets, the Chief Minister’s Office (Mamata Banerjee) refused to budge. Had the Mamata government released the potato stock,potato prices would not have skyrocketed. Mamata never gave any explanation regarding the lack of clearance of the stockpile of potatoes,in a classic show of misguided arrogance.
Again,Kanyashree,a scheme aimed at empowering the girls of West Bengal through enabling their education and eventually preventing their marriage at an early age,has been an eyewash. The Mamata regime expressed “inability to furnish relevant records due to privacy and security” to the CAG in 2017,when asked to show details about the scheme.District level analysis revealed that 39% of girls in Murshidabad are married between the age 15-19, which is more than the 33% figure of 2005-06.Kanyashree,clearly,failed to eradicate child marriage.
Pathashree,another pet project of the TMC,to repair or rebuild 12000 km of roads,never kicked off the ground. Mamata merely rebranded the highly successful PM Gram Sadak Yojana to hoodwink the innocent people of Bengal,is what is being claimed.Again,Swasthya Sathi,a poor clone of Ayushman Bharat,barely covers 1580 hospitals,while 18,236 hospitals are covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme,the biggest healthcare scheme globally.The Swasthya Sathi scheme does not cover any pre or post hospitalisation treatment costs. On the other hand,Ayushman Bharat scheme covers 3 days of pre-hospitalisation and 15 days of post-hospitalisation, including diagnostic care and expenses on medicines.
Ditto goes for yet another scheme called Jaldhara,launched in 2017, in order to provide financial assistance for the conversion of semi-mechanised,unsafe boats into mechanised ones, so as to provide safe legalized boats. However, even after over 3 years of the launch, no official government data exists to substantiate the progress of the scheme. Indeed,the Trinamul Congress under Mamata Banerjee has only been announcing schemes with great fanfare but has never bothered to implement such schemes,on the ground. For instance,the TMC had rejected the Smart Cities’ project in 2016. Instead,it floated the Green City project,by merely repackaging a central government project. The TMC had claimed in 2014 that 10 cities would be developed under the Smart City project, which was later cut down to 7 in 2015. With 364 schemes for an estimated cost of Rs 459.52 crore, the TMC once again sanctioned a far higher,Rs 720.66 crore in 2017-2018. Yet,no details are available about either the Green City project or the reasons for sanctioning a far larger amount than what was needed. Lack of transparency has been the routine modus operandi,under the Mamata regime.
The districts of Malda and Murshidabad in West Bengal have emerged to be the two most dangerous districts in the entire country, posing concerning national security threats.In September 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested five suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists from Murshidabad who were planning an attack on Kochi, Mumbai and Delhi. One of the suspected terrorists, suspected to be a Rohingya and a Zakir Nair follower,advocated the necessity of waging wars for Islamic causes. Needless to add,illegal and radicalised infiltrators from Bangladesh, including Rohingyas,made a mess of Bengal’s law and order machinery in the last ten years,with Mamata turning a blind eye to the rising lawlessness in Bengal.
More than 600 women have been brutalised as a result of ‘Love Jihad’,within the South Malda parliamentary area,alone. This has occurred under the wider umbrella of Islamization or,Ghazwa-e-Hind,that Mamata has been tacitly encouraging. West Bengal has failed to provide data for the 2019 report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Consequently, crime assessment has been made based on data from 2018.
Given the tendency of the TMC government to fudge and manipulate data, the real picture of law and order in Bengal, is likely much worse.As per the 2018 Report,for violent crimes, West Bengal ranks 3rd in the country with nearly 44,446 violent crimes being reported from the state in 2018.Bengal reported the third-highest incidents of murders in the country (1933),of which nearly 356 murders were due to the reason of dowry alone.Bengal also reported the highest number of attempts to murder cases in the country,with nearly 12,062 incidents under this head.Bengal ranked first in terms of the number of incidents of grievous hurt with nearly 17,969 such incidents being reported and experienced nearly 5191 kidnappings,in the year 2018.Bengal reported as many as 1069 cases of rapes and 944 incidents of attempts to rape, amongst the highest in the country.Nearly 16,038 women went missing from Bengal, the second-highest in the country.Bengal,at 81,224,is also home to the highest number of beggars in India.
The highest number of unrecovered missing females were from West Bengal, with nearly 64,832 females that have gone missing and remain untraced till date. Kolkata also reported the highest number of missing women among Indian cities during 2018, with 2584 cases. Nadia district moreover showed a steep rise in missing women, moving from fourth position in 2017 (1708 missing women) to second position in 2018 (2468 missing women),among the districts of West Bengal. Conviction rate for IPC crimes in 2018 for West Bengal was only 13.4%,versus the national average of 49.9%.
Mamata Banerjee’s incompetence is not limited to lawlessness,rising unemployment and falling gross state domestic product (GSDP) of Bengal. Even in matters of hygiene and cleanliness,in the 2018 Swachh Survekshan (Urban) rankings, 25 out of West Bengal’s 29 participating cities were ranked among India’s top 50 dirtiest cities, indicating the colossal failure of Mamata Banerjee’s own flagship, cleanliness project,the Nirmal Bangla Mission. Over 45 urban local bodies of Bengal have been standing in the way of urban India being completely open defecation free (ODF). Despite repeated reminders by the ministry of housing and urban affairs, the nodal ministry for Swachh Bharat mission, the State government has remained lukewarm to Prime Minister Modi’s flagship,Swachh Bharat mission’s targets.
Amidst a leadership crisis in Bengal that went from bad to worse in the last ten years, corruption has wreaked havoc. More than 2100 complaints were lodged amidst widespread clashes and attacks on panchayat and block development offices, against alleged embezzlement by the Trinamool Congress. Panchayat pradhans and members allegedly included their family’s names in the list of beneficiaries, instead of the truly needy,who should have received the benefits of Rs 5000 crore sanctioned by the Modi government,towards the Amphan cyclone in 2919. In one instance, a pradhan of Hooghly district,belonging to the TMC, listed his own phone number in records of 100 beneficiaries, with his wife’s name also appearing in the list.
TMC’s favouritism towards its own party members became clear when the State health department published a list of 647 candidates for filling up the post of clinical tutors and demonstrators,across various categories in the medical education service, doctors’ bodies and medical students’ forums. Most of the posts were filled,not based on merit but based on allegiance to the TMC.For instance, a young man of 25 years, who had just completed his MBBS,was selected to be the RMO of Bangur Institute of Neurology, even though the eligibility for the post required a 3-year MD and another 30 year DM experience, after completing MBBS. However, father of this RMO is a powerful TMC leader.So rules were bent mercilessly.
West Bengal has seen a wasted,lost decade under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership or rather the lack of it,between 2011 and 2021. In sharp contrast,despite the BJP not being in power in Bengal,Prime Minister Narendra Modi,true to his magnanimous and toweringly tall stature, has never ever engaged in partisan politics. In the Union Budget 2021,Rs 25,000 crore has been allotted towards 675 km of highways to be built in Bengal. Recently,PM Modi dedicated four infrastructure projects worth Rs 4700 crore at Haldia,including the inaguration of three projects pertaining to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, BPCL’s LPG Import Terminal, GAIL’s Dobhi-Durgapur Natural Gas Pipeline and NHAI’s four lane road overbridge cum flyover at Ranichak. These projects will redefine West Bengal and entire Eastern India in terms of Aatma Nirbharta of connectivity and availability of clean fuel,besides improving both ease of living and ease of doing business in the region. These projects will also help Haldia to grow into a major hub of export-import. Scarcity of gas was leading to closure of industry in the eastern region and in order to remedy the situation, a decision was taken to connect Bengal with the eastern and western ports,via the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project.
The 347 km Dobhi-Durgapur Natural Gas Pipeline for instance,will directly benefit not only West Bengal but also 10 districts of Bihar and Jharkhand. The construction work will provide 11 lakh man-days of employment to locals in Bengal,will provide clean piped LPG to the kitchens and enable clean CNG vehicles. Durgapur fertilizer factories will get continuous gas supply. The Durgapur-Haldia section of Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline,will hugely benefit Bengal. Prime Minister Modi’s government has taken many steps to modernize Kolkata’s Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Trust. The new flyover and proposed Multi-Modal Terminal of Inland Waterways authority will further improve the connectivity of Bengal,with other parts of India and will lead to the emergence of Haldia as a center of immense energy, for an Aatma Nirbhar India.
Good governance is not merely a platitude for the Modi government and this was evident when Modi inaugurated the extension of Kolkata Metro Railway from Noapara to Dakshineswar,last month. Modi also dedicated to the nation the third line between Kalaikunda and Jhargram, doubling of Azimganj to Khagraghat Road section, fourth line between Dankuni and Baruipara, and the third line between Rasulpur and Magra. In the final analysis,suffice to say that the decisive winds of change that are blowing in favour of the BJP,ahead of the Bengal polls,is not merely about a huge anti-incumbency wave against the inept and corrupt Mamata Banerjee dispensation but more importantly,it is about the crying need for “poriborton” and change. Why should Bengal not demand stability,a functional law and order machinery, jobs,growth and so much more? Why should Bengal not seek an aspirational society?Thirty four years of debilitating rule under the Leftists,before being subjected to ten years of complete apathy by the Trinamool Congress,have shackled Bengal,which surely deserves better. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mammoth and unprecedented rally on March 7,2021 at the Brigade Parade ground,has re-written history,that is in the making. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das organised a protest at this historic ground against the Rowlatt Act during the colonial era,with Mamata Banerjee addressing a rally here in 1992,when she was still in the Congress.
However, going forward, the sea of humanity that chanted Jai Shree Ram and Bharat Mata ki Jai,at PM Modi’s stupendous rally on this ground,will remain the defining moment,for decades together. Numbers never lie and the colossal numbers that showed up on March 7,2021,clearly corroborate that the people of Bengal are ready for change and for a Shonar Bangla,that has been long overdue. Bengal seems to have made its choice and rightfully so.
In the final analysis,one of the lasting images of the West Bengal elections,that has truly been the catalyst,this poll season,is the Brigade Parade ground rally,by PM Modi. This historic ground hosted one of its first political meetings in 1919, when Chittaranjan Das and other nationalist leaders rallied against the Rowlatt Act. After India gained independence, this ground has been used by various government agencies,political parties and other organisations to hold events,but never in its recent history,has the Brigade Parade ground seen the kind of “Jan Sailaab” or mammoth turnout,that was witnessed on March 7, 2021,when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave that iconic address,in the run-up to the Bengal elections. Mamata Banerjee,was the chief organiser of a youth Congress rally in 1992,on these grounds. She had then rung a huge symbolic bell called “CPI(M)-Er Mrityu ghanta” (CPI-M’s death knell), in a bid to give a message to the people to fight against the CPI-M. Now,29 years later, Banerjee has created for herself a massive anti-incumbency wave,with the winds of change decisively blowing against her and her corrupt and incompetent regime. The people of Bengal are yearning for real change (Asol Poriborton) and,rightfully so.
Sanju Verma is an Economist,National Spokesperson of the BJP and Bestselling Author of “Truth &Dare–The Modi Dynamic”
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