Bengali Muslims are with us: BJP

Highlight: We are going to campaign on the Saradha scam, misgovernance, no development, decline in law-and-order and also the links that have now surfaced between the TMC leadership and the jihadi groups from Bangladesh and Pakistan

An upbeat BJP is now eyeing Bengal as its next site of electoral victory. Traditionally a Left bastion, Bengal now seems to be veering to the Right, with the CPM rapidly ceding space to the BJP. The party’s national secretary, Sidharth Nath Singh, who is in charge of Bengal, talks to Monobina Gupta about the BJP’s unfolding strategy in the state that till now was largely indifferent to the BJP. 

How would you assess your party’s growth in Bengal?
We are growing in Bengal at a fast pace. People in that state, like throughout the country, want development. The Left Front ruled for 34 years. People wanted change. Mamata Banerjee came to power with the promise of Poriborton (transformation). But more than three and a half years into governance, nothing has changed. People want an alternative. We can give them development and that is what matters. People in Bengal will respond to us just the way the rest of the country has responded to us and Narendra Modiji’s leadership.

Is there any breach from within the TMC ranks? 
We don’t need that. Despite its impressive 2011 assembly win, the TMC is crumbling under the weight of its misgovernance, corruption and protection to anti-national elements. 

Is the CPM rank and file switching over to you?
Yes. Neither the CPM nor the Congress is a force to reckon with. Nobody in West Bengal wants to consider the CPIM as an option. The real fight between the TMC and the BJP will be played out in the 2016 assembly elections.

What has been the BJP’s growth graph between 2009 and 2014 in Bengal?
We have covered a lot of ground after 2011 assembly polls, though we had done well even in the 2009 general elections, and later in the 2011 assembly elections. Despite a low vote-share, we covered booths where we didn’t exist earlier. But after 2012, we felt that the BJP — if we played our cards well — can become a political alternative in Bengal. With Bengal’s voters supporting Modiji’s development agenda, the 2014 elections made a real difference to our party’s position in the state. People were tired of Mamata Banerjee’s appeasement vote-bank politics. Therefore, even in her Bhowanipur assembly segment, Mamata Banerjee lost to the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections – the BJP’s voteshare jumping from 5% in 2009 to 17% in 2014.

Are you getting Muslim votes?
It’s simply not true to say that we are not getting Muslim votes. Take the case of the Basirhat-Dakshin bypoll results. We won the seat from the CPI-M. In several booths where the Hindu population is numerically lower to Muslim population, the total votes polled by the BJP was higher than the Hindu population. This was seen at many booths of Basirhat Dakshin. The only inference one can draw is that the BJP has also secured a good number of Muslim votes — a trend also evident in the Lok Sabha elections. Don’t forget that the BJP came second in the recent Chowringee bypoll, which the TMC had won by a 13,000 vote margin. That’s no mean feat for a party which is still in the process of evolving and growing in this state.

Do you think the BJP’s campaign is polarising West Bengal?
This is something the secular lobbies like to spread about us. But the fact is that Bengali Muslims, not illegal migrants from Bangladesh — but the original Bengali Muslims of Bengal — are supporting us. They are a poor community which has not benefitted at all from 34 years of Left Front government. Nor are they getting anything from the present TMC dispensation. This community is, therefore, looking towards the BJP. And we are getting their overwhelming support. 

Unfortunately, the so-called secular forces' assumption has been that Bangladeshi infiltrators are welcomed by original Bengali-Muslims. They treat Bengali-Muslims as their permanent vote bank (taken for granted). The strategy of allowing infiltrators and making them voters and clubbing them both as Muslim voters is now backfiring on TMC, Congress and the CPI-M. Bengali Muslims are also nationalist and want good governance. They are tired of being treated as a vote bank. They are against jihadists and want us to take up the matter of national security and stop the activities of jihadists in Bengal. 

What is your campaign strategy in West Bengal?
We are going to campaign on the Saradha scam, misgovernance, no development, decline in law-and-order and also the links that have now surfaced between the TMC leadership and the jihadi groups from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Media reports now inform us that the TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Hasan Ahmed Imran has funded the subversive programmes of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, with the Saradha chit fund money. And the Jamaat’s role in trying to dislodge the Sheikh Hasina government has also been reported in the media. The nexus of TMC leaders, Jamaat, terrorist groups and mushrooming of terrorist training camps in madrassas near the porous borders of West Bengal, are now before us.

The BJP will take up the issue of Bangladeshi immigrants on a war footing and that will be tied to the larger question of national security and not politics. The recent case in Burdwan clearly shows the linkages between terror groups in Bangladesh and their growing nexus in Bengal. True, this has been going on for a long time. But since Mamata Banerjee’s ascendancy to power, such tendencies have escalated. Bengal’s vulnerability to terror has increased. The Chief Minister, for her party’s petty electoral gains, has provided shelter and encouragement to these illegal migrants. The situation in West Bengal is becoming dangerous. 

You maintain the BJP will not communalise the discourse in West Bengal. But isn’t there a real apprehension that your campaign, focusing on Bangladeshi immigrants and national security, will polarise an already communally sensitive state like West Bengal? 
There is absolutely no question of that happening. As I have told you earlier on in this interview, the original Muslims of Bengal are supporting the BJP’s call to address the Bangladesh illegal immigrants issue. So how does the question of communalising or polarising the situation arise?

Which are the main pockets of strength for your party?
We are growing all across West Bengal. You can go to any district — not just the border districts. Take a district like Burdwan, for example, where the party is rapidly coming up as a force. Or go across Kolkata. The BJP organisation has marked its presence across the state. We have scaled up our membership which now stands at a million – a huge number of them being Muslims.   

How high is West Bengal on your party’s agenda?   
It is one of our top priority states. My party president keeps asking me every second day about our activities and progress in the state. How is the BJP faring etc. I am confident that people will not tolerate Mamataji beyond five years. We have a real good chance in the next assembly elections.

Have channels of communication opened up between you and Mamata Banerjee in the state?
No. The TMC cadres attack our people. I have also been threatened but the fact is that we are here to stay. Ironically, just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Mamataji dismissed me saying, “Who is this cockroach?” The same person is now compelled to take BJP and us seriously — as her party people have told me. Yes, Mamata’s party people are terrified of her.
In one of her recent Facebook posts Mamata Banerjee has accused you of “character assassination particularly when women are concerned”. What do you have to say to that?
We respect women but no Indian has a right to embarrass India by supporting jihadis and anti-Indian elements for vote bank politics.

Any highlights of the campaigns that you have planned in the near future?
We are gearing up for Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections early next year along with other corporation elections. On October 17 we have a massive rally outside the Corporation building in Kolkata to expose yet another scam related to the ruling TMC.