New Delhi: One of the country’s last bastions of secular politics, West Bengal, seems to be crumbling under the weight of communalisation. With the resurgence of the BJP, anti-minority feeling is spreading rapidly, particularly in Kolkata, which once prided itself for protecting minority rights.
While the Congress had virtually disintegrated over the years in the state, the influence of the Left parties too has been on the wane. Statistics show that the Left won less than 10 per cent of seats in the 2016 Assembly polls.
In the 2018 panchayat polls, the Left parties slipped to third place behind the Trinamul and the BJP.
The fight in the state is mainly between the Trinamul and the BJP. West Bengal, one of the most politically crucial states of India, will undergo a lengthy seven-phase polling, starting from April 11.
Moving around recently in Kolkata, which has four Lok Sabha seats (Kolkata South, Kolkata North, Jadavpur and Dum Dum), one can sense simmering anti-minority sentiments. The BJP’s one-point agenda in West Bengal is to polarise votebanks.
Members of a housing society at Karaya Road in Park Circus have apparently decided to block the entry of any Muslim tenants.
“We have decided not allow Muslims in our society,” an association member told this newspaper. A senior journalist, who once used to attack the BJP’s “communal politics”, is now ranting against the TMC for appointing Firhad Hakim as Kolkata’s mayor.
“How can Kolkata have a Muslim mayor,” he asked. A Bengali businessman from Salt Lake accused Mamata Banerjee of “Muslim appeasement”.
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