Modi-Didi love fest: BJP state unit becomes the sacrificial lamb in West Bengal 'saudagiri'

With not a thundersquall in sight, Kolkata is sweltering at 36 degrees but with a RealFeel temperature of about 50 degrees. But the citizenry’s discomfort is nothing compared to the discomfort felt by the West Bengal BJP. They had to smile politely through gritted teeth and applaud as their bête noire Mamata Banerjee and their hero Narendra Modi put on a grand show of public bonhomie and broke bread privately together.

“Dal se bada desh hai (The country is bigger than parties)” said Modi generously.

“Kaam pyaar mobabbat se hota hain, badnaami se nahin” (Work happens through love and affection, not mudslinging),” said Mamata.

Forget the Lok Sabha elections. We have come a long way from the sturm and drang of even December 2014 when Mamata thundered “The situation in India is like Emergency now… I dare Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to arrest me. This is an open challenge.” And the BJP cadre chanted “Gali gali shor hain, Mamata Banerjee chor hain.”

The Saradha investigation had embroiled Mamata’s trusted lieutenant Madan Mitra. The party was distancing itself from former railway minister Mukul Roy. And at Amit Shah’s rally in Kolkata, the crowd was sure it was only a matter of time when the third M would fall – Mamata herself.

What a difference one municipal election and a few stalled bills can make. Basking in the afterglow of that victory it is clear that now is Didi’s summer of content made even more glorious by the sun of Modi-ji.

The signs of thaw were already on the wall much like the graffiti for the just-concluded elections in Kolkata. Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien has promised his party’s support in the Rajya Sabha, ball by ball, issue by issue. Shoaib Daniyal in Scroll listed four signs that Didi and the erstwhile “Danga Babu” (Mr. Riot) were burying the hatchet at least temporarily. The Saradha investigation seems to have gone on simmer instead of full-boil. It looks like Mukul Roy will escape its clutches. The BJP is not harping on the bomb blasts of Burdwan. The municipal elections did not happen under an enormous deployment of central forces. And Trinamool lent its support to the land boundary bill it had opposed under UPA rule as well as the coal and mines and minerals bill and has given in principle its support to the GST bill Modi desperately wants to pass.

In politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. But Mamata’s rapprochement raises eyebrows because when she sparred with the BJP she took no prisoners. Haridas Pal (useless person), Danga babu, gadha (donkey) were just some of the names she had hurled at Narendra Modi. When Tripura’s Marxist chief minister met Modi, Mamata whose party had boycotted the swearing in of the NDA regime, had mocked them as “Boro bhai, chhoto bhai (big brother, little brother”). Now Big Brother and Big Sister are breaking bread together as if Bhratri-Dwitiya or bhai phonta has come early to Bengal.

It’s win-win for the two. Except there is a third player too - the state BJP. But West Bengal’s Assembly elections are not till 2016.

Modi needs Mamata’s votes in the Rajya Sabha right now. He’s realized that while a fire-breathing Amit Shah can rally the state unit, it’s proven quite counterproductive to his ability to pass bills at the national level. Shah after promising to be in Bengal every month gave the entire municipal elections a miss. And Mamata after conclusively re-establishing her supremacy in Bengal politics in the municipal elections feels more secure to negotiate with Modi from a position of strength without worrying about the state unit nipping at her heels. And if she can get a special package for Bengal out of it all she can claim this is all for the good of Bengal. The state BJP cried foul after the elections and staged a bandh protesting unfair practices but all their protestations were undone by the chummy photo-ops of Modi and Mamata over the past weekend.

As The Times of India reported Mamata “overshadowed BJP leaders – Siddhartha Nath Singh, Rahul Sinha, Samik Bhattacharya and Ritesh Tiwari – who had gone to the airport to welcome Modi.” When singer Babul Supriyo pulled off a surprise victory in the Lok Sabha elections, Modi rewarded him with a place in his ministry. It was a sign that the BJP was going to go all guns blazing in Bengal. The state BJP was excited to build on its impressive vote share gain. Modi had outlined the party’s strategy – development, Saradha and minority appeasement. “Mamata is talking about the Bengal model,” party candidate Chandan Mitra said. “For us that is deindustrialization, corruption and gang rape.” And he predicted that “as Saradha unravels it will take Mamata with it.”

The state unit of the BJP, historically an also-ran in Bengal, was abuzz with activity and energy as party officials excitedly shared stories about people joining in droves. Even Muslims, they insisted. They were ready to step into the main opposition space. The municipal elections blanketed the city with their posters and processions while the old warhorses of the CPM and Congress often hired a solitary three-wheeler to roam around neighbourhoods with a hired hand reading out a message. All that energy and expense amounted to little gains for the BJP when the results came out.

Now the only thing Narendra Modi promised the chastened state unit of the BJP was Mamata’s one-time favourite Mukul Roy, who had heaped praise on the PM, would not be inducted into the BJP. That would have hit hard at the state unit’s credibility because Mukul Roy had been one of their prime Saradha targets. Saradha is still the Damocles sword. But for Modi it is more advantageous right now to keep it dangling rather than bring it down on Didi.

The CPM is going to town saying “I told you so.” Even before the 2015 Lok Sabha elections, Sitaram Yechury had told a roadside rally in Kolkata that the war of words between Mamata and Modi was just “noorakusti” or shadow-boxing. He reminded the audience Mamata visited Modi with a bouquet in 2002 and the BJP knows it can do “saudagiri” with Trinamool. Watch and wait, he said – “chunav ke baad bhai bhai” (They will be brothers after the elections).

As Modi offered up puja at the Kali temple in Dakshineshwar, the state unit of his own party would not be misplaced in thinking that they were the sacrificial lamb in the rapprochement between Modi and Mamata.

In the Kolkata summer they were the ones left out in the cold.