Murshidabad, March 20: Mamata
Banerjee today took care to explain the “threat” posed by the BJP, the
focus on the party at a Trinamul workers’ meeting in Murshidabad
betraying her apprehensions about the possible impact of the Narendra Modi factor on the four-cornered Lok Sabha poll battle.
“I am against the
BJP. The BJP is communal. They want to divide Bengal,” the chief
minister said at the Astabal grounds near Hazarduari.
The gathering had
been billed as a workers’ meeting but the 20,000-plus turnout gave it
the look and feel of a public meeting. Mamata used the opportunity to
attack the BJP, which till now has been a marginal force with a vote
share of around 6 per cent in Bengal.
But the equations
can change this time as the BJP is expected to fare better this time
because of the nationwide wave in favour of Modi, the BJP’s prime
ministerial candidate.
Although it cannot
be predicted that the BJP will eat into Trinamul’s vote share, the
uncertainty over how Modi’s party will fare in Bengal, which will
witness a four-cornered Lok Sabha poll fight for the first time, has
become a topic of discussion in Trinamul ranks.
Trinamul sources
said the party could face a difficult battle. Mamata’s speech today, the
sources said, was aimed at a wider audience, not merely the gathering
in Murshidabad.
“The vote shares
could swing either way in some seats in a four-cornered fight. Tie-ups
had worked in our favour in the past,” a Trinamul leader said.
During her 50-minute speech, Mamata explained to party workers why they should concentrate on the BJP while campaigning.
The Trinamul
sources said the Jangipur bypoll in 2012 must have been playing on the
chief minister’s mind as she was in Murshidabad. The BJP had got over 10
per cent votes in the bypoll, around 6 per cent more than what it had
got in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
The impact of the
rise in the vote share of the BJP and some identity-based parties
brought down the Congress’s victory margin to 2,536 votes from 128,000
in 2009.(TT)