In an already over-heated election atmosphere of Bengal, one name that keeps cropping up in the BJP’s campaign against the ruling Trinamool Congress is that of poll strategist Prashant Kishor whose company is advising Mamata Banerjee.
While Kishor believes the upcoming polls would be a fiercely fought political battle between the Trinamool Congress and its primary challenger, he asserts the results would be one sided. Kishor says whoever wins the elections will win it big while the other side gets decimated. Excerpts from an exclusive interview to News18 on why Kishor thinks it would be the Mamata Banerjee-led party which will emerge as confident winners in these high-stakes polls.
When you tweeted your assessment of Bengal election results saying “BJP will struggle to cross double digit” mark in the state, what was the basis of that claim?
Not one, I have five reasons to back my claim:
- The first is what I call the denominator effect. In the Lok Sabha polls, the TMC garnered 45 per cent vote share in the state. The BJP had 40 per cent. Now, the BJP’s basic vote bank denominator in West Bengal is 70 percent of its population, meaning the majority community. The Trinamool, on the other hand, will seek votes from 100 per cent of the state’s population leaving no one out of its ambit. While there are no indications so far that the Trinamool has slipped from the support it had in 2019, the BJP has an uphill task of swinging at least 70 per cent of its denominator vote in its favour in order to increase its total vote share to more than 45 per cent. In other words, more than 70 per cent of the Hindu population in Bengal will have to vote for the BJP which is very unlikely.
- The next reason is the geographical spread of seats in Bengal. Of the 23 districts in the state, nine big districts have over 180 of the total Assembly seats. All nine of them are currently TMC strongholds and the BJP will have to sweep at least a majority of them in the state elections if they have to cross the halfway mark and win the polls. So even if the BJP fares well in other pockets of the state, it would not win the elections because the Trinamool remains unchallenged in these big districts.
- True, there is a certain degree of anti-incumbency against the Trinamool and perhaps also anger and disillusionment against some of its leaders. But there is no widespread anger against Mamata Banerjee. Her popularity and acceptance remain intact. The support and sympathy Didi continues to enjoy in this state is unmatched by any leader in the BJP. The BJP may try and cash in on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the state elections but sooner or later they would need to find a face to counter Didi’s popularity. They don’t have it yet.
- Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, we have made radical structural changes in the Trinamool Congress. Younger and cleaner faces have been put in charge of the party in the districts and that is bound to have a positive impact among voters as well as grassroots workers. In 2019, the party was complacent and was dismissive of the BJP as a potent force in the state. That was a mistake which won’t be repeated. The Trinamool Congress is now much better prepared and battle-ready than it was in 2019.
- There has been a massive outreach drive by the Bengal government in the last year and a half. Two campaigns in particular – Didi Ke Bolo and Duare Sarkar -- are a resounding success. The ‘Didi Ke Bolo’ campaign has touched base with some 45 lakh individuals of the state who were able to reach the chief minister with their complaints. Even now, we get 7,000-8,000 calls a day from people and register their complaints. The ‘Duare Sarkar’ campaign has attracted a whopping 1.4 crore people to the camps for disbursement of flagship government schemes of the state in the first fortnight itself. These programmes have developed a connect between the government and the people and will surely cut down some the anger that may have been pent up against the administration.
All these aspects put together puts the Trinamool Congress in a much better position to take on the BJP than it was in 2019. If you translate the 162 seats it holds going by its performance in the general elections, it is only likely to improve upon that tally rather than sliding down to 70-80 seats as the BJP claims it would.
What is your assessment of Suvendu Adhikari and how do you think his exit from the party and moving over to the BJP would impact the TMC’s poll fortunes?
The Trinamool Congress leadership was in doubt about Adhikari’s integrity for quite a while now. There are strong reasons to believe that Adhikari was hobnobbing with the BJP even when he was in the party. That fact has been confirmed by Adhikari himself at the Midnapore joining rally where he confessed being in touch with the BJP since 2014. The data of poll results we have with us for the districts he was put in charges of also makes it apparent that there was internal sabotage. Except his father, Sisir Adhikari, brother Dibyendu and his close Sunil Mondal, who has now defected to the BJP along with Suvendu, no other leader won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
So, for us, the priority was not to assess the loss his exit would make but to rectify the mess he had created while staying within the party. He was doing that either to bargain his position within the party or to use it as a leverage to switch over to the other side. He was, hence, removed from his position as observer of the last two districts he was holding, Malda and Murshidabad, in June and the internal party structure was revamped in a manner so that no individual could hold absolute sway over an entire district.
But did Mamata Banerjee herself not reach out to Adhikari when the party was holding back channel talks with him before his exit?
Banerjee has not spoken to Adhikari since July this year. Contrary to what has been reported in the media, in the last meeting that Adhikari had with leaders like Saugata Roy, the chief minister made a general presentation of the affairs within the party over speaker phone. She never spoke to Adhikari personally.
Both the BJP as well as the dissidents within Trinamool are calling the latter a party which has “outsourced” itself to your company, I-PAC, and hence, ceases to remain a political party anymore. How do you respond to that?
The BJP should be the last party to talk about “outsourcing”. Between June 2013 and May 2014, every pan-India campaign the BJP launched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls was designed by me. These include party workers collecting scrap iron from 4 lakh villages of the country for building the Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel, the Run for Unity campaign, the Chai Pe Charcha campaign, 300 meetings of the Bharat Vijay rally and even the 3D Hologram meeting of Modi.
I have designed the Bangadhwani Rally for the Trinamool in much the same way. Would the BJP then say that they had “outsourced” their party to me back then?
My role with the Trinamool Congress is strictly advisory and the performance of the party will be decided on the basis of its core strengths.
Your tweet mentions that you will quit if your prediction about the BJP struggling to reach three-figure mark in Bengal turns out to be wrong. Does it mean that like the Trinamool and the BJP, this is going to be a high-stakes election for Prashant Kishor as well?
I want to put on record that I will quit what I do, call me a political consultant or poll strategist or whatever, for good if my prediction turns out to be wrong. I have put all that I have done and achieved in the last seven years at stake before the Bengal elections of 2021 and have stuck my neck out. I challenge the BJP to do the same and back its claim of 200-plus seats by making a similar proclamation in public domain.
Comments
0 comment