Bengal elections: Will there be any undercurrent of religious mobilisation?

Kolkata: Even though the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has always maintained that Bengal’s political tradition does not endorse competitive religious mobilisation and polarisation strategies imported from elsewhere will never be allowed to thrive in the state, a surge of recent announcements and counter announcements centering around religions throw questions if they will indirectly sharpen communal polarisation in Bengal ahead of assembly polls. Suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir pressed ahead with laying the foundation stone of a Babri like mosque in Murshidabad's Rejinagar and has claimed that the political momentum itself had shifted. In nearby Banjatiya in Murshidabad, BJP leaders also conducted groundwork rituals for a Ram temple, framing it as resistance to what they called minority appeasement. Out of the 294 assembly seats in Bengal, Muslim votes are deciding factors in almost 70 seats, while in another 30, they play a pivotal role. In the past few elections, the minority votes have consolidated in favour of the ruling party.

In the 2021 assembly elections, TMC secured its dominance in Muslim majority seats across Bengal and thereby won in 75 out of 85 such seats. These assembly seats mostly fall under the districts of Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, Birbhum and South 24-Parganas where Muslim population ranges between 35 and 66 per cent. Among these, Murshidabad and Malda have the highest muslim population with 66.3 and 51.3 percent respectively. As soon as Kabir tried to set a different narrative centering on the foundation of Babri-like mosque, TMC moved swiftly to distance itself from Kabir’s initiative. On December 7 last year, Kolkata's Brigade Parade Grounds, the most politically loaded public stage, hosted a massive Bhagavad Gita recital projected as "five lakh voices chanting together". It had also courted controversy as chicken patty sellers were allegedly attacked by the BJP workers. TMC had raised the issue. Incidentally, Trinamool Congress supremo and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee last year inaugurated a Jagannath Temple in Digha that has come up at Rs 250 crore, which many had seen as a counter to the BJP’s Hindutva push. Banerjee also announced a ‘Durga Angan’ in New Town and a ‘Mahakal’ temple in north Bengal.

If Muslim votes split between Trinamool Congress and Left-ISF alliance and Humayun Kabir’s Janata Unnayan Party (JUP) in a three cornered fight, it is to be seen how far the ruling party will manage to consolidate the support of the minority dominated seats. In 2011, the Congress and Left won a majority of these 85 seats but over the decade the ruling Trinamool Congress managed to win their hearts through development and allegiance shifted to TMC.