“Duare Injury” must not derail deliverance of justice (Editorial)

A regional party gasping for breath after a near-complete whitewash in the April-May assembly elections in the eastern state of West Bengal suddenly got a fresh lease of life it had been baying for.

Thanks to a little bit of ill-planning (or a deliberate game planning?) by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party headed by Suvendu Adhikari, the opposition Trinamool Congress was served an opportunity on the platter to catch the proverbial straw that enabled it for the time being, to resurface from a neck-deep quagmire.

The wide publicity in the local and national media the TMC All India National spokesperson Abhishek Banerjee managed to snatch on Saturday, notwithstanding the ‘perfume’ permeating his torso following a generous sprinkling of eggs (rotten, not verified though) by a fiercely protesting crowd of protesters, might be a music to the ears of his aunt and now ousted Mamata Banerjee A.

If the latest reports are to be believed, sleuths who registered a case suo moto for the alleged unprovoked assault on Abhishek Banerjee, arrested five persons who were believed to be TMC supporters, but switched camps over to BJP following the party’s disastrous debacle.

The train of TV camera persons accompanying Banerjee to a couple of city nursing homes and Mamata Banerjee’s running commentary later on how the attending doctors had allegedly been threatened by the BJP leaders against admitting her nephew to the nursing home, did nothing but soil the image of the BJP nationally.

Mr Banerjee, it is true, was on record saying that he had been tipped off about some trouble at a village in Sonarpur in South 24 Parganas district during his proposed visit; yet he deliberately deboarded his car and preferred to pillion ride a bike so that he could become an easy target for assault.

And obviously, he succeeded in his endeavour to trap the villagers who poured their accumulated anger by throwing eggs and hurling slippers besides tearing his shirt. Helmet wearing devastated Banerjee smeared with egg yolks instantly grabbed the national mileage, much to the chagrin of the BJP leadership.

Hardly had dust of the Abhishek imbroglio settled when Trinamool MP and the party’s parliamentary chief whip Kalyan Banerjee was reportedly hit by a stray stone on Sunday. The TV grab of Banerjee lying down on the street with his forehead covered by hand, was enough to arouse the bogey of violence. No bloodstain was visible though from his forehead.

BJP to Pay the Piper?                   

However, there is something more than meets the eye.

The question that arises now is whether the state BJP leadership would be prompt enough to pay the Piper in order to refurbish a TMC-engineered campaign that all these ‘are BJP-sponsored violence’.

Playing the harmonium to the gallery with an oft-repeated alibi – spontaneous overflow of powerful protest - (to wrongly quote Wordsworth) may not always hold water.

Secondly, reports have also emerged that more than 50 BJP workers have been showcaused at the behest of state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya for indulging in post-poll violence in various parts of the state.

For the discerning observers of politics, it would be quite childish to conclude that the BJP that has assumed office in the state for the first time since Independence, will be too immature to fathom the political fallout of the Abhishek or the Kalyan fiasco.

BJP Plans Chalked Out

The saffron think tanks, observers tend to point out, have a plan properly chalked out.

Immediately after the polls, CPIM that had almost competed with the Congress for near obliteration from the face of Bengal, has slowly begun regrouping among a section of the minority voters at the cost of the Trinamool.

Not a welcome trend for the BJP though; because the saffron would prefer anything but a resurgence of the Marxists who had reversed Bengal’s engine of growth by several decades during their 34-year- rule.  

The only alternative might be to allow the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC to cut right into the emerging Marxists pockets of influence and permanently stymie the Left’s diehard endeavour to resurface in the state.

It would always be safe for the saffron brigade if the major chunk of the minority vote bank gets evenly split between the TMC and Congress; the delayed poll results at Falta demonstrated a disturbing trend, with the CPIM capturing the major slice of the minority vote, pushing TMC down to fourth position after the Congress.

Poll mathematics is tricky and has to be carefully redrawn; else it won’t augur well for the BJP. In the intervening period, the ruling clique will have to ensure that in the ensuing melee of fueling ‘organised protests’ against TMC, no major setback occurs which might derail the government’s carefully chosen programmes to deliver justice.