Coincidentally, far away from the posh upper-middle class and aristocratic Calcutta, intellectuals, college professors and lecturers, left, secular and democratic social activists and budding Bengali writers at a seminar were holding a brainstorming discussion to find the way out to the current impasse.

Both the hang-outs were concerned about the intensifying communal hatred and social divide, just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. They nursed one common perception: the country may witness a major communal flare-up just in the middle of the election. Intriguing indeed that on the very next day of the holding of the two events, the chief of the BJP social media, Amit Malviya wrote on X/Twitter that a certain group of people were forced to “flee their homes in villages in Diamond Harbour (Bengal) after violent attacks against them”. Bengal police not only denied Malviyas’s manufactured news; it also warned of dealing sternly with the people spreading false news.

Though Malviya is BJP’s all-India social media chief, for the last six months he has made Bengal his second home for obvious reasons. He is busy drawing detailed master plan as to how to use the judiciary, bureaucracy and police against the ruling TMC, and evolve a sound political mechanism to vitiate the social ambience in Bengal. The wild allegation of Malviya simply reinforces the apprehensions that the academics and intellectuals of the state have been harbouring, that some kind of ugly development would take place in the middle of the electioneering in case the BJP ecosystem comes to realise that election results would mar the prospects of Modi coming back to power for a third time.

Participants were quite frightened by the two speeches that Narendra Modi delivered in West Uttar Pradesh, and the so-called attack on NIA sleuths in Bengal on April 6. For them these have ominous implications. A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) faced an attack during a raid in the Bhupatinagar area of East Medinipur district in West Bengal on April 6. They had gone to the village literally well before sunrise, around 4 in the morning, to arrest two TMC leaders in an old blast case of 2022.

Chief Minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee has accused NIA officials of entering into the houses, while women were asleep and attacking villagers at Bhupatinagar. She said: “The villagers had attacked after NIA officials had entered several houses in the early hours, in self-defence.” The villagers have also filed FIR against the NIA officials. However, the BJP leaders have accused TMC leaders of instigating attacks on ED personnel and compared it with three month old Sandeshkhali incident.

Meanwhile, one of the NIA officials, SP Dhan Ram Singh, who had raided the village in the night, has been called back to Delhi. In his place a DIG-rank officer has been sent by the NIA from Patna to supervise cases. The TMC had alleged that a BJP member, Jitendra Tiwari, met NIA SP Dhan Ram Singh at his residence on March 26. TMC also submitted a copy of the visitor’s register at Singh’s residence with an entry allegedly showing Tiwari’s visit. The TMC claimed that Tiwari was seen entering with a packet in his hand and when he left an hour later, he was empty-handed.

This midnight raid is being cited as an attempt by the BJP ecosystem to create severe law and order situation in the state. Earlier, BJP had used Sandeshkhali to foment violence in the state. But its design collapsed. Now, it is trying to use Bhupatinagar incident. The mysterious has been the claim by the NIA which is being spread by the media that no person was arrested. But the officials claim that NIA had arrested two key conspirators in connection with the 2022 Bhupatinagar bomb blast case in West Bengal's East Midnapore district. The arrested persons are Balai Charan Maity and Manobrata Jana.

Mamata has sought to know: “Why did they raid at midnight? Did they have police permission? Locals reacted in the way they would have if any other stranger had visited the place at midnight. Why are they arresting people right before the elections? What does the BJP think, that they will arrest every booth agent? What right does NIA have? They are doing all these to support the BJP. We call upon the entire world to fight against this BJP's dirty politics."

There is no denying that the threat of imminent defeat has turned Modi and his lieutenants aggressive to snatch a pyrrhic win. This is a most dangerous propensity. A handpicked election commission cannot be expected to do justice to the electorates and the opposition parties. Mamata’s stance is clear: "We want the Election Commission to work impartially, not turn into a BJP-run commission." It’s virtually a cry in wilderness.

It is Modi’s constantly changing strategy that has been the main source for distraught in the political circles and even among common people. From Katchatheevu to Jinnah, Modi has instigated many delicate topics over the course of last week. There is no doubt that his speeches do not make sense and are devoid of historical endorsement, but he is undeterred. This has in fact panicked the people. They are sceptical of situation turning worse.

On March 31 he came down heavily on the Congress over the ceding of Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka in 1974 by the Indira Gandhi government. He was trying to foment communal passion. It has been a long settled matter until the Modi government tried hard to turn it into an election plank.

It would not be wrong to say that some of the so-called national dailies and media have been deliberately feeding wrong information to the public to create another Modi wave, or at least to stem any signs of anti-incumbency in the bud. Strange enough, Modi cited a report in the Times of India and posted on “X”: “Eye-opening and startling! New facts reveal how Congress callously gave away Katchatheevu….” further posting “weakening India’s unity, integrity, and interests has been Congress’ way of working for 75 years and counting.” Where were the star newsmen of TOI in those days and why TOI preferred to raise this issue just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections?

Soon after, the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar shared Modi’s tweet with the caption: “It is important that people know the full truth about our past. The facts brought out… should concern every citizen.” Jaishankar should have shown some honesty as during the UPA rule he shouldered major responsibility in the foreign affairs ministry. Modi repeated the baseless and fraudulent allegations in West Bengal on April 7, where he claimed that for the Congress party, both Katchatheevu and the territory of Kashmir, which is contested by India and Pakistan, do not matter.

Modi even equated the Congress 2024 election manifesto with the “Muslim League manifesto”. Ironically, it’s his own political ancestors, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and other RSS leaders, who were close associates of Jinnah and the Muslim League.

It is Modi’s desperation to win the election at any cost that has been the source of the country’s anxiety. Modi received a scathing attack from the Thakurs of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in the form of Thakur Mahasabha openly calling their members to defeat Modi. This call is going to change the electoral scenario of Uttar Pradesh. Experts are hopeful that the new alliance of Muslims, Jats and Rajputs will finish off BJP in UP.

Modi’s speeches make it absolutely clear that nothing is taboo or immoral for him. “This Bharat is the same Bharat of the great Pataliputra, Magadh and Chandragupta Maurya. Aajka Bharat ghar me ghuskar maarta hai (Today’s Bharat thrashes them inside their homes. Today’s Bharat shows the way to the world)”: these are loaded words aimed at polarizing the fractured polity of the Indian election theatre. This has been a key BJP theme since the 2016 “surgical strikes” on PoK terror camps and the Balakot airstrike of February 2019 that, by all accounts, helped the party immensely during the last general election, but is the prime cause of panic because of the impending threat perception. (IPA Service)