Modi causes a stir in elections, woos Trinamool of all parties!

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Ashis Biswas
Published : 18:46, Apr 02, 2019 | Updated : 19:48, Apr 02, 2019

Ashis BiswasWonders never cease, in Indian politics. Imagine Prime Minister Narendra Modi sending a strong feeler for help to ---- of all people! ---to his bête noire by choice, Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool leader, in the thick of an election campaign?
Well, the unthinkable has just happened: That is precisely what the Modi, also the leading face of the Bharatiya janata party (BJP) in India, did last week. Taking everyone by surprise, he told his interviewer during a TV programme that he’ would have no problems working with leaders like Mayabati or Banerjee in the national interest.’
Also significant was the way he sent his remarkably straightforward signal to the enemy camp. Making a rare concession to the media he normally avoids, Modi aired his views on a national TV channel known for its loyalty to the BJP. His high profile interviewer (who also owns the channel), looked as aghast as did most of the viewers, as Modi made his pitch.
Stunned, he double checked with the Prime Minister to confirm what he thought he had heard! Modi repeated his words. The interviewer, with a penchant for using hyperboles as well as high decibels, could barely articulate his next question. How could Modi and the BJP even think of working with Banerjee in view of her consistently provocative and abusive rhetoric directed against him and the BJP? Almost before the question ended, Modi was explaining that people said a lot of things during election campaigns. Parties opposed each other, but leaders surely could come together in the national interest.
Political analysts in Kolkata and Delhi said that the shrewd Prime Minister had done his homework before picking on the BJP’s future allies in the post election scenario. Both ladies had been alliance partners of BJP-run or supported governments earlier, working as Ministers, at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Banerjee’s relations with the BJP had been warmer. She had resigned, even as the BJP had urged her not to quit the central Ministry in the wake of the Tehelka sting operation. It had showed the ruling party’s president Bangaru Laxman taking a bribe.
Both again, had already done the ruling BJP a great favour by rejecting any pre-election alliance or seat adjustments with the Indian national Congress (INC) in UP or Bengal. In both states the INC was a declining force. In UP, not even the desperate induction of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra into the campaign by the INC was expected to cause much damage to the formidable alliance between the Samajbadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The formidable Muslim and Dalit support base of both parties together with some help from other castes, had queered the pitch for both the BJP and the INC.
The undated photo shows India`s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi. PTI/File PhotoClearly, the PM’s comments indicated that the BJP was geared to face a hung parliament in 2019. Both the INC and the BJP would be unable to achieve single majorities. A combined opposition on the basis of effective seat adjustments would have ensured the BJP’s defeat. But it would have helped the national resurgence of the INC, enabling it to emerge as a major force all over India again.
Meanwhile, regional parties like the Trinamool (no longer Trinamool ‘Congress’, as before) and the BSP would have remained confined to UP and Bengal.
However, such a scenario runs counter to the present plans and future visions of both Mayabati and Banerjee. Both are aspirants for the Prime minister’s chair. Helping the Congress to prosper at the expense of the BJP was neither’s first priority. While anerjee is the Chief Minister in Bengal, Ms Mayabati is politically ‘hungrier’, as the saying goes. She has been out of power longer. Despite claiming a vote share of over 22 percent in the Lok Sabha, the BSP went without a seat in 2014 LS polls. Both sees the present as make- or -break time for their parties and their own future.
This serves the BJP very well too. So long as the INC remains sidelined at the national level, there should be no problems aligning with the BSP or Trinamool. Major financial concessions and plum portfolios should do the trick---rich rewards for their service of keeping the INC, the only party with the potential to confront the BJP nationally, out of the reckoning.
The question arises, will the BSP and the Trinamool respond positively? So far (as of now) there has been no reaction from either party to Modi’s feeler. But the possibility of their supporting the BJP cannot be ruled out either.
Significantly, BSP leader Mayabati has been more aggressive against the INC. She has snubbed its proposals for seat adjustment repeatedly, during the present campaign. She has been markedly less critical about the BJP. As for Banerjee, she has made it plain that she had no problems with the BJP so long as Rajnath Singh, Arun jaitley, Nitin Gadkari or Sushma Swaraj were leading it. She also had great respect for leaders like Advani or the late Atal Behari Vajpayeee. It was not the BJP she opposed, it was Mr. Narendra Damodardas Modi she hated.
Even if both parties were to issue routine refusals to Modi’s feeler (they have not done so yet), most observers would be loath to take their reactions at face value. ‘Initially negative reactions from political parties to specific issues often turn out to be denials that eventually affirm earlier speculations,’ reminds one analyst.

A Kolkata-based journalist, Ashis Biswas has worked for the Hindustan Times, Ananda Bazar Patrika, The Hindu and the Outlook magazine during his long career. He has been based in New Delhi, Kolkata and the Northeast and worked in West Asia as well.

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***The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions and views of Bangla Tribune.
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