 "PM Modi hits out at TMC over Sandeshkhali incident, party retorts")
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after winning 18 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in West Bengal, couldn’t replicate its success in the Assembly polls two years later, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) securing 48.02 per cent of the vote to the BJP’s 37.97 per cent.
Post-poll studies attributed the surge in support for the TMC to more women, especially poorer women, voting for it.
On Wednesday, the battle for West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats was renewed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed an “all women” public meeting of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha in Barasat (80 km from Sandeshkhali), North 24 Parganas. He accused the West Bengal government of using all its might to save the “oppressor of women”, a reference to suspended TMC leader Sandeshkhali strongman Sheikh Shahjahan. Modi said the storm in Sandeshkhali would reach every corner of the state, and also met the alleged victims of Sandeshkhali. “For me, the mothers and sisters of Bengal rise like Goddess Durga,” he said.
The TMC leadership responded in like manner. In the morning, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her government would increase by Rs 750 the allowance for the state’s ASHA (accredited social health activists) and aanganwadi workers.
TMC Rajya Sabha member-elect Sagarika Ghose said the BJP should “learn from the Bengal model of female empowerment”, and pointed out that the party insulted Bengali women by fielding in Asansol Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh, whose songs “denigrate” Bengali women.
The BJP withdrew Singh’s candidature after the outrage.
More From This Section
The Trinamool accused the BJP of failing to protect the dignity of women in Manipur, of garlanding the rapists of Bilkis Bano, and not taking action against its Lok Sabha member Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Later in the day, Banerjee urged people to join her at a public meeting in Kolkata on Sunday to protect “Bengal’s culture”, its religious harmony and way of life from bohiragoto (the outsiders) and “apasanskriti”.
In the 2021 Assembly polls, Banerjee-led Trinamool defeated the BJP with her “unique appeal to ethno-cultural emotions as banglar meye (daughter of Bengal) or didi ke bolo (talk to Didi) programmes as against bohiragoto (the outsiders), according to academician Kaberi Chakrabarti.
According to CSDS-Lokniti, more men (41 per cent) voted for the BJP than for Trinamool (40 per cent) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, 47 per cent of women voted for the Trinamool compared to only 38 per cent for the BJP. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the Trinamool was ahead of the BJP by six percentage points in its support from men, but its lead among women over the BJP was twice as high. The Trinamool received 50 per cent of votes of women compared to the BJP’s 37 per cent.
According to the study, more significant numbers of “poor” and “lower class women” voted for the Trinamool than for the BJP compared to middle-class and affluent/upper-class women. According to the study, several welfare schemes for women, such as Kanyashree, Rupashree or bicycles for girl students, Lakshmir Bhandar, which ensured an honorarium for women from poorer households, helped shore up Trinamool’s support among women.
The Trinamool gave Assembly tickets to 50 women (on a total 294 seats) in 2021, five more than in 2016. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool fielded 17 women candidates or 41.6 per cent of its total candidates from Bengal. In the Rajya Sabha, of the 13 Trinamool MPs by April, five will be women.