“Muslims in West Bengal will not vote for us,” Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said while speaking to mediapersons on Wednesday. The BJP leader went on to accuse West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of ‘poisoning the Muslims’ in the State against the BJP on the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Nandigram MLA’s comment was in the context of defection of the Congress MLA from Sagardighi Bayron Biswas to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on May 29 and how it was impossible for a BJP candidate to win the constituency with 70 % Muslim electorate.
This was not the first time Mr. Adhikari has raised the issue of the NRC. Over the past few months, the BJP leaders had reached out to Muslims in the State pointing out that they had been fooled during the 2021 Assembly poll by being threatened on the issue of NRC. Unlike the other BJP leaders in the State, Mr. Adhikari has taken a different approach while reaching out to Muslims and has pointed out that a large number of Muslims in West Bengal were migrating out for jobs. Mr. Adhikari has been emphasising that the BJP was not against “nationalist Muslims” and trying to get some support from the community which officially comprises 27.01 % electorate in the State.
Mr. Adhikari’s remarks were in response to the Sagardighi defection and the TMC leadership raking up the issue of the NRC. Ms. Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee have been ‘warning’ Muslims that the BJP government at the Centre was making fresh attempts at implementing the NRC.
On April 18, while addressing a press conference at the State Secretariat, the Chief Minister cited a letter from the Centre on identifying illegal Aadhaar cardholders in North and South 24 Parganas districts flagging concerns that the BJP government was reviving the citizenship overdrive ahead of the general election. Since then, the TMC leadership which is busy at a party outreach led by Mr. Banerjee has repeatedly raised the issue.
Mr. Biswas’s defection to the TMC has also assumed significance as far as the support of Muslim electorate in the State is concerned. The people of Sagardighi on February 28 had chosen to vote for the Left-supported Congress candidate instead of the TMC and Mr. Biswas won with a margin of nearly 23,000 votes.
Keeping the ideological and moral issues relating to defection aside, a section of political observers feel that the defection is going to help the Trinamool as far Muslim electorate is concerned. “The defection of Bayron Biswas is a masterstroke from the Trinamool Congress. It will give a message to the Muslim voters that they may choose to vote for anyone but the elected representative will eventually join the ruling party,” political observer and psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty said.
Prof. Chakraborty said that Muslims had a tendency to vote for a party that would defeat the BJP and unless the BJP was able to get some support from the community the party may not taste electoral success in the State.
ISF MLA’s charge
Meanwhile, at a time when political circle are debating Mr. Biswas’ defection, the only non-Trinamool Muslim MLA Naushad Siddique on Thursday stirred up a political controversy by saying that he was being lured by ruling party which had offered him crores of rupees and a ministerial post if he decided to defect to the Trinamool Congress. The MLA said that he was also threatened by the ruling party but he decided not to defect. Mr. Siddique is the only MLA from Indian Secular Front (ISF) and was elected from Bhangar Assembly seat from South 24 Parganas in the 2021 Assembly election. The ISF had entered into an electoral alliance with Left parties and Congress in the last Assembly poll.
