Factionalism Could Spell Doom For Amit Shah's Target

Factional fight could spell doom for Amit Shah’s ambitious target to win 25 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal

- Rabi Banerjee

In the 2016 assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had to face a formidable opponent in Bhabanipur constituency. The BJP had fielded Chandra Kumar Bose, grandnephew of Subhas Chandra Bose, against her. Bose, a former employee of Tata Steel, joined the BJP after he became close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. He, however, lost to Mamata by a huge margin.

“Even God would not have been able to defeat Mamata on her turf without preparation,” said Bose. “The 26,000 votes I managed to get was because of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.” In 2011, the BJP had polled just 4,800 votes. Bose said he did not want to contest, but was forced by the BJP national leadership to take on Mamata. In Bhabanipur alone, he said the BJP was divided into six factions, and he had to fight all of them, instead of challenging Mamata.

During the campaign, Bose said he visited a slum and found that despite the squalid conditions, nearly all the shanties had television sets. He saw people watching a sting operation on the alleged corruption in the Trinamool Congress. Bose asked them how they could vote Trinamool after watching that. And, he got an interesting reply.

“These ministers take money from the rich, keep a portion of it, and distribute the rest among the poor like us,” said a man. “I suggest you also do that and you will get our votes.”