West Bengal Assembly Elections | The limits to polarisation in Bengal
The Hindu
Despite a fierce Hindutva push, the BJP failed to retain the level of Hindu support it garnered in 2019
There is no denying that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has massively increased its vote and seat share in West Bengal compared to the 2016 Assembly election, and this has largely been on the back of a strong Hindu consolidation behind it (50%), as per the Lokniti-CSDS’s post-poll survey. But the party failed to retain the level of Hindu support (57%, or nearly three-fifths) it had secured in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, thus ending up faring way below its own expectations and its performance in the last general election. The Trinamool Congress was a direct beneficiary of this erosion of votes, with the party registering an increase in Hindu support from 32% in 2019 to 39% this time. This seven-percentage-point shift from the BJP to the Trinamool happened despite the former running a high-pitched Hindutva campaign that was aimed at exciting Hindus through Jai Shri Ram slogans, talk of illegal migration, allegations of ‘Muslim appeasement’ against the ruling party, and anti-Muslim dog whistles, such as raising the spectre of West Bengal becoming a ‘mini-Pakistan’ and calling Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ‘begum’ and ‘khala’.More Related News