The inexplicable yet deliberate reluctance of both the state and the centre to maintain even minimal semblance of governance in a border state inhabited by almost 100 million people was shocking. It is only now that the motive for encouraging such destructive violence that specifically destroyed the country’s assets, is becoming clear.

Fortunately, there was no communal character, no mass murders in the mayhem of December, 2019. Also, the BJP government at the centre, which never tires of tomtom-ing its ‘surgical strikes’ against Pakistan, exposed its own cowardice in retreating before the TMC’s open challenge to its authority — surely, a major constitutional failure. If Bengal policemen were not visible as railways stations and trains burnt, so also were the personnel of the railway protection Force, leaving thousands of unarmed, stranded passengers with their families to their fate for three days!

There is nothing inexplicable about the CAA legislation, though. The Bharatiya Janata party(BJP)-ruled Government wants to empower the long suffering streams of Hindu Bengalis forced by pressure of circumstances to cross over to India from Pakistan/Bangladesh. There can be no doubt that the bulk of them living in west Bengal, their numbers estimated variously between 8 million to 16 million, will thank the BJP warmly .

While the CAA makes the BJP’s approach to the Bengal Assembly polls in 2021 easier, as it will be a major plank for the party in its election campaign, it spells big trouble for the ruling TMC. As the Lok Sabha poll stats in 2019 show, , the TMC can apparently count on the Muslims, about 30 per cent of the electorate and a minority within the more numerous Hindu voters as its dependable support base in 2021. No wonder that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is going all out to sabotage if she can, the CAA in Bengal. In the process, being a shrewd political campaigner, she has made her anti CAA protests like organizing rallies and meetings all over Bengal, part of the TMC’s campaign for the 2021 Assembly polls.

She has launched a two pronged attack against the BJP: first, she terms the CAA as ‘communal and discriminatory’, as only Muslims will not be entitled to automatic citizenship status if they are forced to come to India for religious or other persecution. Second, she has tweaked the centre’s move as a god-gifted opportunity in her quest to emerge as the sole custodian of Muslim interests and causes in India.

Witness the TMC’s attempt to reach out to Muslims in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka following the recent outbreaks of violence. True a TMC delegation, as expected was sent unceremoniously packing from UP. But in Karnataka the party struck paydirt as its delegates met some Muslims. The notoriously hard-up Bengal Government that has not paid its employees their DA for years, even announced Rs 500,000 each for the families of two Muslim victims.

The money was well spent, from a TMC perspective. There is no doubt Ms Banerjee remains the most popular leader among Bengal Muslims. But these days she is also worried about the inroads made among her voters by Dr Asaduddin Owaisi-led Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). Dr Owaisi makes no secret of his plans to expand his base in Bihar and Bengal. He has set up a local base with some success. He talks of plans for holding a massive rally on the Brigade Parade ground sometime next month.

Worse, Ms Banerjee was bested roundly by the redoubtable Owaisi, an excellent speaker in his own right, as he tore into her, questioning her ‘opportunism and hypocrisy’ as a Messiah for Muslims, after she described the AIMIM as ‘extremist.’ For once she had no answer.

The despatch of TMC delegations to UP and Karnataka is part of her campaign not only to consolidate Muslim votes in Bengal against the BJP, but to send a clear message to Dr Owisi and his AIMIM as well. As one observer explains,’ There is currently among Indian Muslim leaders a scramble to be as commanding as a minority leader as the late Jinnah Sahib. Now Ms Banerjee has also thrown her hat (hijab?) into the ring. The TMC is saying, Beware Asaduddin, here we come ‘!

Her recent letters to non BJP Chief Ministers and leaders in India, appealing to them to work out a nation-wide anti BJP front forms part of the same initiative. So is her journey to Jharkhand to cheer the new Chief Minister, well in advance of other opposition leaders.

The feverish, breakneck pace of her anti-BJP campaign worries some top leaders within the TMC. They realise that fighting off BJP’s challenge in Bengal 2021 will be difficult enough. The saffron party will be the TMC’s strongest challenger among the majority Hindus (70 per cent of the population). Muslim votes could be divided, with the AIMIM coming into the picture. But as of now, it is hard to see the AIMIM emerge as a major challenger to the TMC’s support among the minorities.

Party insiders are seriously concerned about her renewed efforts to emerge as a major national player once more. She had tried her best to catalyse a national political anti-BJP consolidation in early 2019, before the LS polls. She had invited major political parties for a common programme and a mass meeting in Kolkata. She had visited Shiv Sena leaders as well as BJP Chief Minister of Odisha Mr, Naveen Patnaik.

What followed was a disaster. There was neither much unity among the problem-ridden, mangled anti BJP forces, nor could she defend her own turf Bengal, where she had given a call to win all 42 LS seats! The TMC’s LS seats fell to 22 from 34 in 2019.

This is what other TMC leaders are worried about. They fear their leader, once again, is opening too many fronts. Their energies are bound to be spread out too thin in the days ahead. Defending Bengal should have been the top priority for her as well as her party, instead of engaging in grandiose attempts to strike out and conquer other states.

The TMC had tried such experiments in the past, with occasional success in Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur, but they proved to be no more than a flash in the pan.

Kolkata-based analysts wonder whether the highly prized advice of poll strategist Mr. Prashant Kishor (now also chief political Adviser to the TMC!) have anything to do with her currently revived aspirations to make her mark on the national centrestage of politics . A single tweet from the gentleman could certainly throw much light on the Bengal political scene. (IPA Service)