Given the spate of funding to puja committees and pandal inaugurals, the BJP is challenging the TMC on the Hindutva plank
Bengal’s unabated Coronavirus spiral would logically demand that mass-spreading events, especially the community festival of Durga Puja, be scaled down with the tightest protocols to limit a super contagious congregation. But it is just as big and spectacular this year and if videos on social media of preparations are any indication, then crowding is a fallout that no vigilance and protocol can prevent given the fact that the puja in Bengal is an emotion, not religion. But it is a wave so powerful that politicians cannot ignore it or afford to underplay it as this single event does what no rally can, takes them closest to voters. Besides, an entire sub-sector of the economy lives off the annual jamboree. So it is understandable why on the eve of the Assembly elections, the pandemic has given way to political exigency. Truth be told, the Left rule in the State had never appropriated the Durga Puja or the allied cultural space so evidently though it did use the pandal stalls to propagate communist literature. But in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) regime, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has ensured unprecedented Government patronage to puja committees, using them to entrench her appeal at the community and block levels of the State. Over the years, she has inaugurated pujas herself to appease majoritarian sentiment, considering she is largely defined in the public space by her pro-minority tilt. Except this time, the societal polarities are sharper and she has another opponent challenging her cultural monopoly, the BJP. The Central party made massive inroads in the Lok Sabha elections and is hoping to consolidate itself in the Assembly elections. Besides, it has realised that the Ram temple cannot quite generate the same enthusiasm in Bengal, which swears by Shakti icons, as it did in northern India. Hence it is now using Durga Puja to push its Hindutva agenda. In fact, the BJP has put Mamata in quite a spot, forcing upon her a logistical nightmare. Even before she had finalised the scale of festivities, the BJP ran a campaign that she was stalling the puja and prayers that would offer succour in COVID-stressed times. She had to publicly commit otherwise. Now if she bungles affairs, goes bankrupt funding the humongous man-management required or worse fails to contain the pandemic surge, it can always blame her for incompetence. That the BJP is dead serious is evident from the fact that none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurating the pujas digitally. It is debatable whether the Prime Minister should endorse any religious event at all given the constitutional mandate his role requires but in a post-Ayodhya India, where he himself reset the propriety of conduct by laying the foundation stone of the Ram temple, such questions won’t be asked. In fact, by avowedly professing his faith preference, he has normalised such behaviour. So a bevy of Central BJP leaders and Ministers are expected to whip up popular opinion on their side during the puja through a series of virtual inaugurations. There was even talk of Home Minister Amit Shah visiting Bengal after his COVID recovery. The drive had begun last year on Mahalaya when BJP leaders performed tarpan (offering water to the dead) for 80 party workers who died in what they claim as TMC-fuelled violence. Ever since then, the BJP has followed the TMC’s strategy of funding puja committees and this year is using Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s legacy to drive home the point that its ideological parent, the Jan Sangh, was formed in Bengal and, therefore, it is not an outsider party. Besides, with its State unit riven by faction fights, the BJP is using Modi’s aura.
By no means a pushover, Didi, as Mamata is popularly called, is on an inauguration spree herself. In fact, she was one up on the BJP initially when she called out the Yogi Adityanath Government in Uttar Pradesh for permitting Ramlilas but not Durga Puja in public spaces and wondered whether the goddess was not part of Hindutva. The Central BJP forced Adityanath to rescind the partisan order and allow the puja. But quite blunderously, she has doubled the financial assistance to 37,000 puja committees, from Rs 25,000 to 50,000. Besides, power charges and other fees are being discounted or halved. This flies in the face of her claims that Cyclone Amphan had not only flattened the physical infrastructure in the State but bankrupted the coffers. TMC leader Derek O’Brien has already made much noise about how the Centre owes Bengal Rs 53,000 crore and even GST dues. The puja largesse has, therefore, invited sharp criticism and made her look power-hungry. Mamata has never played the majoritarian game and is a bit out of depth, walking into the BJP’s Hindutva trap by reacting to every move her rival is making. By draining her on the religious agenda, the BJP is making sure that she is diverted from her own agenda. But Didi can still stir up the popular pulse and resonate with grassroots Bengal though she may encounter some anti-incumbency in the urban pockets and the industrial belt, where the BJP is working hard. And she scores with populism. No doubt, the BJP’s vote share has risen dramatically from 17 to 40 per cent, snapping up the Left and Congress pies. But the TMC has also grown from 39 to 43 per cent. And that is a realistic testament to her iron-fisted implementation of welfarism and drive. Yet a tiny swing could cost TMC seats. But Mamata has strategist Prashant Kishor, a popular sentiment of the victim who wins back her rights and matches Modi measure for measure, the tea-seller versus the slum dweller. Will she bounce back thunderously or scrape through is the question.
