How Mamata’s urban bastion of bhadraloks was besieged by BJP
Anchored in the ethos of quintessential Bengali bhadralok and intellectual elite, the high-profile urban constituencies in Kolkata, long considered a secure turf of Mamata Banerjee, have, for the first time in decades, shown visible cracks with the BJP making inroads in the TMC’s urban fortress. The challenger BJP won six out of the 11 Assembly seats in the city. Bhabanipur in south Kolkata, which emerged as a high-stakes battleground, witnessed the biggest upset with incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee losing to her aide-turned arch nemesis Suvendu Adhikari by a margin of 15,105 votes. Mamata’s second drubbing at the hands of Adhikari – in 2021, she had lost to her former aide in Nandigram, a rural constituency.Not far from Bhabanipur, Rashbehari too voted for the BJP. Swapan Dasgupta defeated TMC heavyweight Debasish Kumar by 20,865 votes. In Tollygunge, the cradle of Bengali film industry, former TMC minister Aroop Biswas lost to BJP’s Papia Adhikary by 6,013 votes. In Shyampukur, another TMC minister, Shashi Panja, got the drubbing. She lost to BJP’s Purnima Chakraborty by 14,633 votes. In the northern limits of the city, the story was no different. TMC’s Atin Ghosh, who had won comfortably in 2021, lost to BJP’s Ritesh Tiwari by a margin of 1,651 votes in Kashipur-Belghachia. This churn in the “Greater Kolkata” region was not accidental, but a meticulously crafted strategy of the BJP, aimed at dismantling its “outsider” tag with a well-calibrated effort towards cultural assimilation paired with an aggressive development pitch. A key moment of the strategic recalibration came on Bengali New Year on April 15 – a week before the first phase of voting on April 23 – when the BJP, labelled bohiragato (outsiders) by Mamata, used the occasion to deepen its Bengali cultural roots. BJP leaders were seen playing dhaak, walking with fish in their hands, and actively taking part in the Poila Baisakh festivities.Story continues below this ad To further this Bengali imagery, the BJP even adopted “fish and rice”, the quintessential Bengali staple, in a bid to position itself as a party culturally aligned with the bhadrolok identity and challenge the TMC’s emotional pitch of Bengal’s ashmita (pride). Another key element was the BJP’s political messaging. During the poll campaigns, Union Home Minister Amit Shah repeatedly asserted that, if voted to power, the party would appoint a “bhumiputra” (son of the soil) as the next chief minister, countering Banerjee’s core theme that the BJP is a party of “outsiders” from Delhi or Gujarat. “If the BJP is voted to power, the next chief minister of West Bengal will not be someone from outside. It will be a bhumiputra, a son of this soil, who will lead the state towards Sonar Bangla,” Shah had said. On the other hand, running simultaneously with the cultural outreach was the BJP’s emphasis on a “New Bengal”, with the party’s election campaigns directly addressing the urban voter’s anxieties, such as investment, job opportunities, and economic revitalisation, projecting Kolkata as a global hub for industry rather than just a centre for heritage.
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