BJP president J P Nadda’s speech at his virtual rally for Bengal showed that despite winning 18 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections, the party is yet to have a credible Bengali face in the state. Nadda in his nearly an hour-long speech made only passing references to Bengal BJP while he referred to the achievements of Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee at length to criticise Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
While it is understandable that substantial portion of Nadda’s speech will be about the achievements of the Jan Sangh founder since the rally was held on the occasion of his birth anniversary but even when referring to his party’s key poll planks his sole reference point was Syama Prasad.
Whether it was hitting out at TMC for appeasement politics, deterioration of education in Bengal or clinging to power at any cost, Nadda did not find any current example in the state leadership with whom he can compare Mamata.
He said that while Syama Prasad never made any compromise with his principles and dedication to the nation for power, the TMC is desperate to cling to power at any cost even if it means slapping false cases on BJP workers and unleashing violence on them.
As for the status of education in Bengal, he again had to fall back on Syama Prasad’s academic prowess to allege that under the TMC regime, standard of education in the state has taken a nosedive. He said that to restore the former glory of Bengal, the TMC has to be ousted from power but remained silent on whether the state BJP has a vision of how to bring back the glory days of the state.
Even when criticising Mamata on the issue of governance, Nadda again fell back on the Jan Sangh founder.
The fact that Nadda kept harping on how Syama Prasad ensured that West Bengal and large parts of Punjab remained in India during the partisan showed that BJP’s search for Bengali icon is far from over and hence the saffron party has to cling to Syama Prasad.