There is no Opposition politician who is fighting against the imposition of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) harder than West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
And there is also arguably no other Opposition leader with as much at stake with this political hot potato. After Assam, if there is any state where the BJP has promoted its plans for the CAA-NRC to the hilt, it is West Bengal, a place home to thousands of Bangladeshi immigrants.
So, how is Mamata Banerjee standing up to the BJP challenge and how is this issue changing the political dynamic in West Bengal, which goes to polls in 2021?
BJP’s Agenda, Mamata’s Counter: Not What I-PAC Hoped For
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP made dramatic inroads in Bengal by winning as many as 18 seats, only 4 fewer than Mamata’s Trinamool Congress.
The BJP’s meteoric rise, from 2 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 to 18 seats five years later sent shockwaves through the TMC. Weeks later, political strategist and JDU Vice President Prashant Kishor and his political consultancy I-PAC were brought aboard to help run the TMC’s campaign for the 2021 Assembly polls.
Well-placed sources familiar with the TMC campaign revealed to The Quint that based on early discussions with the party, I-PAC’s aim would be to focus the campaign on the developmental and welfare measures undertaken by the Mamata government and make the conversation about that, rather than talk about Hindu-Muslim polarisation attempted by the BJP.
The aim was for Didi to set the agenda, and keep it away from allegations of Muslim appeasement made by BJP and counter-allegations of communalism made by TMC.
I-PAC got off to an early start, with the ‘Didi Ke Bolo (Tell Didi)’ outreach program starting soon after the consultancy was brought aboard.
But then, CAA and NRC took centre stage with the BJP’s repeated promises to the people of Bengal about these two initiatives and suddenly, Mamata was having to react to the conversation, yet again. And more importantly, with one of the prime arguments against CAA-NRC being that it would disproportionately disadvantage Muslims, it was the Hindu-Muslim narrative in Bengal that was sharply in focus once more.
So, how would Mamata react now? Mounting a strong counter on the NRC was but the only option.
Mamata’s Plank: This Affects the Poor, Hindus as Well as Muslims
There wasn’t much of a doubt in anyone’s mind that the TMC would oppose the NRC. But there are two distinct things about Mamata’s response that are noteworthy.
1. The messaging: The strategy of the TMC’s opposition to CAA-NRC has been to explain to the people of Bengal that this twin initiative of the Modi government will adversely and disproportionately affect the poor.
Since large sections of the economically underprivileged don’t have many of their documents with them, there is a strong argument that a test of citizenship which requires them to produce documents to prove citizenship will disadvantage them greatly.
By focusing on this line of communication, Mamata is essentially stressing that the NRC mess will hurt plenty of Hindus as well. The fact that there are tens of thousands of Hindus excluded from the final NRC list in Assam only bolsters her argument. In his speech opposing the Bill in Parliament, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee cited the cases of several Bengali Hindus who were suffering because of the NRC.
We’ll get to the BJP’s counter on this in a bit. But before that, let’s look at the second noteworthy feature of the TMC’s opposition.
2. The scale: The sheer magnitude of the TMC’s on-ground efforts and political mobilisation against the NRC has taken a lot of folks by surprise. Mamata has displayed a keenness to make the NRC issue her own and dominate the conversation on the subject.
As a result, in the week following the Citizenship Amendment Bill becoming an Act, there were huge protest rallies organised by TMC in Kolkata, almost every day!
Take for instance, the anti-CAA-NRC rally in Kolkata’s Bhowanipore, where Mamata herself led the sloganeering.
With several of the marches being led by the chief minister herself, the TMC has showed a willingness to make CAA-NRC the biggest issue of the 2021 Assembly election.
But... What About Those Whom The CAA Benefits?
In all of the TMC’s opposition to CAA-NRC, there is one aspect that needs to be considered.
The fact of the matter is that in Bengal, there are thousands of immigrants from Bangladesh – both Hindu and Muslim – who have come here for various reasons, including the search for economic opportunities.
Now, Amit Shah and the BJP are leaving no stone unturned in courting the Hindus among them.
The Home Minister, in seeking to assuage fears about the NRC in Bengal, has repeatedly said that there will not be a single Hindu immigrant in the state who will be disadvantaged as a result of the NRC because the CAA will be brought in to avert that.
He has been making this assertion from months before the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 was brought before the Lok Sabha.
Listen in to a couple of such examples.
So, will this largely Hindu constituency that the BJP is courting buy into Amit Shah’s reassurances and believe that the CAA-NRC combine will work favourably for them?
It is a battle of persuasion – between Amit Shah’s efforts to convince them so, versus Mamata’s efforts to make them believe that large numbers of Hindus will be disadvantaged too.
Interestingly enough, if Mamata retains her consolidation of the Muslim vote as is likely, the battle for such Hindu voters might well play a crucial role in determining the electoral outcome of 2021.
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