Opinion polls for the West Bengal election 2021 have come out by some survey agencies only to put an interim full stop to speculation about results. Who will make the government? That is not the question here I am going to discuss instead, who should be in the government for the next 5 years. Analyzing the history of parties along with their ideologies and policies I will try to find out which party could be the best option for this election.
Bengal is undergoing an important election that can not only change the state’s fate but also decide the direction of the whole country. A maiden win in the state for BJP will act as a boost and steroid for the party which is already quite powerful with enough men in parliament. The win will pave the way for the party to take more strong decisions in the future while the loss in the state will surely down the morale of the party and may help to create a non-BJP or “anti-BJP” alliance including Shivsena, TMC, AAP, RLD, NCP and may be DMK and other similar parties. So West Bengal election 2021 has major stakes for the country near political future. I have already discussed the possibilities of winning this election for parties where TMC and BJP seem to have better luck. For more you can read below:
West Bengal election 2021: Can Mamata Banerjee save her castle to be felled?
Apart from the result that is expected to be out on 2nd May, I am trying to find out which party could be the best among all who is running in this election. Analyzing fundamental ideologies, administrative policies, structure, and the social impact I will try to choose the best.
TMC:
TMC or Trinamool Congress is better known outside Bengal by its leader Mamata Banerjee and that is the first negative point against the party; the lack of democracy inside the party. Mamata Banerjee has become so strong in the party that no one could stand against her and she has been the leader of the party for quite a long time without any competition. The party was established in around 1999 and became a prominent national face during the Nandigram movement which was basically to restore the land of people to be used by industries. It connected the party to the grassroots and very people of the state and became the people’s party.
TMC was developed in a Left ruled state where political violence became a strong weapon against opponents. TMC learned the skills and got into the dirty politics for which Bengal still is being written and spoken about. Since the Nandigram movement played an important role in establishing the party, TMC has never been too close to capitalism. However, it couldn't avoid corruption inside the party and throughout the state. Weakness towards corruption is its second-most negative aspect while communal politics is the worst aspect of this party.
Bengal has an almost 28% of the Muslim population which plays a key role in deciding the winner of the election. The treatment of Muslim voters as a vote bank-led TMC becoming a communal party and have faced several allegations of Muslim appeasement. However, It did a good job in developing West Bengal and the state is far better than other states in several economic and social indices. Nevertheless had TMC not been involved in the dirty violent nature of politics, fighting opponents on the street, and playing caste-based and religion-based games West Bengal would have achieved what it truly deserved.
Although TMC made some announcements for women in the state it failed to provide complete social justice to every section of the population. It is also not such a good option for democracy as it itself lacks democracy inside the party and we can see an inclination towards dictatorship in Mamata’s image while leading the party almost single-handedly.
Negative:
Lack of democracy,
centralized structure,
inclined towards communalism,
use violence in politics,
Lack of strictness against corruption,
Positive:
Implementation of women welfare policies
Down to earth
Balanced approach towards capitalism
Supporting Bengla culture
BJP:
BJP is a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist party with RSS as a right hand. It has seen its elevation with Advani’s rath yatra in around 1990. Several events occurred during and after that “rath yatra” such as the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and riots in Mumbai. Several other major or minor clashes occurred between Hindu and Mulsim that led BJP to collect more of Hindu votes and steadily became a prominent nationalist party. With the rise of Narendra Modi BJP never looked back and skyrocketed in popularity and credibility. It is currently the strongest political party in India and it wouldn't be wrong to say it is at the peak of Mount Everest.
One of the major positive factors of this party is its well-structured setup. It has a ground-level presence with RSS cadres and its own workers working at the district level or village level. It also had quite an impressive democracy until the Modi-Shah out shadowed everyone. Democracy inside the party was phenomenal and anyone could be the next national leader leaving aside some impacts of RSS in these kinds of decisions. Now since 2014 Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have become the biggest personalities in the party and without convincing them the party doesn't move at all. We can also witness nepotism inside the party.
There are also a few examples where we can observe BJP at the state level or central level trying to alleviate other language’s presence like Tamil and Telugu in southern states and Urdu in northern states in order to impose Hindi. Something similar we have witnessed in not supporting cultures other than Hinduism. It's quite good to see Yoga and Hinduism becoming popular at the world level but a diversified India also needs to restore and maintain its centuries-old cultural practices, inducing a diversified diet, fashion, art, and social rituals. They are also quite rigid in decision-making that we have seen in implementing demonetization, GST, CAA, farm bills, and amendment of article 370 and 35A in Kashmir. It seems they don't require the consent of people who are directly affected by these laws. They don't even try to talk or convince the section that is at the center of these laws.
Nevertheless, there are also some issues at the level of ideology that can hurt India’s development in the long run. BJP couldn't keep itself apart from the Hindu orthodox mentality and there are reasons for this as they cant make their biggest vote bank unhappy. Also, their core agenda does not support the multicultural environment of the country. However, there are few things to applaud. Their effort to restore Indian culture, Hindi language(I wish they could only support the elevation of Hindi without curbing progress of other languages), nationalism( only at a certain level), and… that's it.
Negative:
Orthodox Hindu ideology
Hyper nationalism
Anti-diversification in nature
Associated to RSS
Rigid in decision making
Declining party-democracy
Corporate friendly
Positive:
Supporting Indian culture
Supporting the Hindi language
Still a democratic party structure
I am not going to talk about the Left, Congress, or some other small parties which have major stakes in this Bengal election. However, I will discuss them in some other blog but there are not so drastically different from above mention parties and certainly not a good option for future Indian democracy.
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