In recent months there has been a major upswing in TMC-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) relations. At the top level, leaders of both parties have turned ceremoniously courteous towards each other. The much harried Prime Minister Narendra Modi, upset as he is over recent developments, finds time to tweet sweet words about Bengal’s record in the Swachh Bharat campaign, in the social media.

The response from Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is even more substantive, going beyond pleasantries. TMC-ruled Bengal was the lone state in India to declare war against the Left/Congress sponsors of the countrywide bandh on September 2, overlong-term working class demands. Nowhere else in India, whether in Cong(I) or BJP ruled states, the state administration, the police and hordes ofarmed ruling party supporters(not carrying party flags)were let loose against pro-Bandh marchers and picketers.

Over 1000 people were arrested, CPI(M) leaders and supporters beaten up brutally in Murshidabad, south 24 Parganas, Kolkata, Malda and elsewhere. Worse, the partisan police, which increasingly resembles TMC storm troopers in khaki these days, legally accused the victims of instigating mob violence, using non-bailable provisions in their charge sheets.

Former CPI(M) MP Moinul Hasan belonged in this category, not to mention former State Ministers Ashok Bhattacharya(currently Mayor of Siliguri), Mohanta Chatterjee and MLA Paresh Adhikari. Talk about adding insult to injuries! As CPI(M) State Secretary Suryakanta Mishra said, ’This brings back the memories of the seventies (referring to the Emergency)’.

Ironically, not even the state BJP unit, the logical target of attack by 11 pro-bandh National Trade Unions in the Bengal context, organised even a token rally or march to raise a voice against the bandh! While political parties, commentators and civil rights leaders condemned the brutal violence unleashed jointly by the police and the TMC hordes, BJP President Rahul Sinha, not exactly renowned for his taciturn disposition, remained uncharacteristically silent. No wonder CITU leader Shyamal Chakravarty pounced on this, alleging that the TMC and the BJP were working in tandem in the state.

There is no way to ascertain whether Chakravarty was factually correct. But his view answers the crucial question: What had driven the Bengal Chief Minister to go for such a singularly belligerent, war like confrontation against a bandh that was not even directed against the state Government or the TMC?

“It seemed she is desperate to out-Herod Herod himself! There is one explanation: she wants better relations with the BJP at the Centre. The state BJP understood this, its somnolence on bandh day being indirect evidence of that.”The TMC gave enough evidence of indirectly supporting or making it easier for the BJP in Parliament during the last monsoon session. It did not join the opposition on crucial issues and bills.

“On September 2, it served notice that it was prepared to go to war against the Congress(I) or the Left parties, even when they were opposing the BJP at the centre and not targeting the TMC! It is a unique stand, my enemy’s enemy is also my enemy, such is the TMC’s political compulsion. The beleaguered BJP leaders are too astute to miss such signals and are keen to take advantage. No wonder the pace of the CBI investigation into multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, where top TMC leaders are involved, has slowed down in recent months. As a familiar Russian proverb goes, one hand washes the other,” says one analyst.

If this interpretation of the TMC’s recent manoeuvrings is correct- and it is certainly difficult to dismiss it as wrong or farfetched in the oesent context- then it needs stressing that Ms Banerjee has reversed her2014policy of all-out opposition to the BJP .it has been a move largely dictated by considerations of self preservation, in the face of crippling corruption charges.

It is not surprising therefore that in and out of Parliament, opposition parties are nowadays more wary of the TMC”s moves, from the Cong(I) to the SP. However this matters little to the TMC as long as it rules Bengal. If it loses Bengal, its existence as a political force would be jeopardised.

More importantly, better understanding with the TMC suits the BJP’s interests very well.BJP leaders know all too well that their party will not be a major force in Bengal by 2016. Far better then for the TMC to keep attacking the Cong(I) and the Left parties, both implacable longterm enemies of the saffron party.

By way of returning favours to the TMC, things could be made a little easier by a sympathetic centre to meet partially, or even symbolically its desperate demands for financial help from Bengal.

Bengal-based analysts are increasingly horrified by West Bengal’s financial profligacy which has no room for any compensation to families of the poorest farmers committing suicide — over 80 have killed themselves – but doling out over crores of rupees to registered or unregistered so-called ‘Youth clubs’ year after year( over Rs 70 crore and counting, so far)is par for the course! Again, despite the Chief Minister’s proddings, the State government still returns unspent hundreds of crores of rupees of central assistance, for the poor pace of project implementation, a damning indication of its enduring bureaucratic inefficiency.

While such abysmal administrative failures are rightly criticised by the TMC’s political opponents and observers, central BJP leaders like Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari or even Mr, Modi himself, continue to shower praise on Bengal for its ‘encouraging performance’! Such an approach bewilders and frustrates not only the state BJP unit, but common people too.

But for the TMC-ruled Bengal government, praise from the BJP Central leadership now counts for more, than even the support it enjoys from Muslims in Bengal. After all, even supposedly captive vote banks can prove fickle at crucial times. (IPA Service)