The ruling People’s Party of India’s landslide victory in West Bengal’s local elections was not just the prime minister’s revenge against the loss of self-reliance in the 2024 national elections. It signals wider changes in the country’s political landscape, a radical shift in the political pendulum towards Hindu nationalism and a further weakening of the Congress Party he built. the newest on the ruins of British colonialism.
Ten years ago, Modi’s People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party-BJP) governed the whole of India of one and a half billion inhabitants, but it had only three seats in the local assembly of the state (federal state) of West Bengal.
Now the BJP has captured 207 of the 294 seats in West Bengal, the country’s third most populous region (about 100 million people in an area slightly larger than Macedonia and Thessaly combined), on the Ganges delta and bordering Bangladesh.
In the delta of the Ganges is Calcutta, possession of the East India Company from the middle of the 18th century and capital until 1911, with the corresponding cosmopolitanism and inequalities that characterize the region to this day.
Almost a third of West Bengal’s population is Muslim (27%), yet the state has largely avoided the bloody sectarian conflicts that have taken place in other regions. An important role in this tolerance was played by the left-wing government that exercised local power for almost four decades.
The Left Front, with the Marxist Communist Party of India as its core component, was in power for 37 years (seven consecutive electoral victories, from 1977 to 2011), promoting agrarian reform, decentralization and peaceful coexistence.
Infighting, corruption cases and a program of forced land expropriation resulted in the defeat of the Left Front in 2011 and the victory of a 215-seat faction of the Congress Party (AITC), led by Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s first woman chief minister.
Banerjee was elected twice more and remained in office for 15 years, maintaining the spirit of tolerance and coexistence of different religious communities.
Her governments have been marred by corruption scandals but promoted programs to support women and poor students, and Banerjee was among Time magazine’s 2021 list of the 100 most influential people.
Elections in two phases
In last April’s elections (they took place in two phases, on the 23rd and 29th of the month, while the results were announced yesterday Monday), Banerjee was not even elected as an MP.
She denounced the BJP’s tactics and refused to acknowledge the result, claiming that Modi’s party “stole more than 100 seats” in districts where the result was marginal.
Before the elections, almost 7 million names were deleted from the electoral rolls, while over 2.5 million citizens were estimated to have been unable to vote.
BJP got 29.2 million votes and 45.8% (up 7.7%) while AITC got 26 million votes and 40.8% (down 7.2%).
The spread of nationalism through fake news is a winner
According to Indian analysts, even if there were irregularities, the election result is very strong, and is a product of systematic political propaganda with the main axis of strengthening nationalism through the spread of fake news.
A central pillar of the plan was the cultivation of ethnic and religious animosity against the “invaders”, the “illegal immigrants” from neighboring, Muslim Bangladesh.
“Fuel to the fire” from Modi’s party
Since 2017, there has been an increase in tensions between Hindus and the Muslim minority, especially during religious festivals, with BJP cadres adding fuel to the fire by accusing the (outgoing) local government of West Bengal of being “too tolerant” of Islamic “provocations”, which include selling and eating beef in public places when the cow is for the Hindus a sacred animal, respected and protected.
Historic victory for Modi
“The lotus has blossomed in West Bengal,” Modi said after the historic victory of his party, which has a lotus in full bloom as its emblem.
Playing the nationalism card against Muslim Pakistan (which is a nuclear power like India), Prime Minister Modi remains in power for 12 years.
The indisputable progress of the world’s most populous country in all areas during his prime ministership (from the economy to space), is combined with the great inequalities, the strengthening of the phobic reflexes towards Islam and the inability of the opposition to present a convincing alternative plan.
The burden of the Gandhis
Official opposition leader Raul Gandhi, scion of the political dynasty of Nehru, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, inherited along with the name and weight of India’s ‘old elite’.
India’s next general election is scheduled for 2029. Modi will then be 78 years old. At the moment, he has not appointed a political successor, while the issue is a “taboo” for his party. The most pressing issue today is the tremors in the Indian economy from the energy crisis caused by the Gulf War.
However, voters in West Bengal did not disapprove of Modi, but his opponents.
