The recently concluded Lok Sabha election has been full of unexpected outcomes for political parties and the general public alike. The Congress party only managed to obtain 99 seats even after ten years in opposition while the Bharatiya Janata Party was also dealt a serious blow when its share of seats was trimmed to 240. However, despite this performance, the saffron party and its National Democratic Alliance successfully formed governments in Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim and the former was able to secure a complete majority on its own in Arunachal Pradesh and for the first time ever in Odisha after the assembly results of the four states were declared on 3rd and 4th June.
Interestingly, these results have also revealed the polar opposites of political discourse in the country. The Biju Janata Dal didn’t get a single seat in the general election whereas the BJP won 20 seats and one seat went to the Congress in Odisha. The party also garnered only 51 seats compared to the BJP’s 78 in the assembly election. Naveen Patnaik is no longer at the helm of affairs in Odisha after 24 years but the former chief minister was nothing but gracious in the defeat as he gave his best wishes to the new government.
The beauty of democracy and an example of political grace and maturity was on display when CM designate Mohan Majhi of the BJP went to meet former CM Naveen Patnaik and the former CM, a giant of Indian politics who served 5 terms as Odisha CM, stood smiling at his doorstep to welcome his successor from a party that has just defeated his own party in elections.
Odisha CM-designate Mohan Charan Majhi meets Former CM Odisha Naveen Patnaik at ahead of taking oath in Naveen Niwas, Bhubaneswar pic.twitter.com/efeB7WhTa4
— Vasudha Venugopal (@Vasudha156) June 12, 2024
Naveen Patnaik not only wholeheartedly welcomed his successor in the state, he has been posting congratulatory messages on Twitter for the new NDA government for its success and even went a step ahead to specially congratulate Odisha politicians who got posts in the Union Cabinet.
When former CM Naveen Patnaik arrived at the oath-taking ceremony of new CM Mohan Majhi, the top brass of the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Amit Shah, and JP Nadda reciprocated the grace by giving a warm welcome to him as he shared the stage with them.
#WATCH | Bhubaneswar, Odisha: Outgoing CM Naveen Patnaik arrives at Janta Maidan to attend the swearing-in ceremony of CM-designate Mohan Charan Majhi. pic.twitter.com/oBjGXseYYy
— ANI (@ANI) June 12, 2024
In neighbouring state Bengal, it is a whole different story
Naveen Patnaik’s maturity and grace automatically triggers comparisons to another CM. Mamata Banerjee’s TMC fared a lot better than the BJD in the elections. Patnaik lost his state government while Mamata enjoys a comfortable majority and even won significantly more Lok Sabha seats than the BJP in her state.
However, the Bengal CM has been bitter and angry. She knows very well that the NDA won the majority mandate fare and square, but the truth has not stopped her from vomiting bitter political barbs against PM Modi and the BJP.
Instead of displaying political grace expected from a veteran politician like her, she has been all anger and hostility.
Her political gimmicks come out as churlish and juvenile. She claimed, “I am happy that the Prime Minister did not get the majority figure. The Prime Minister has lost credibility, he should resign immediately because he had said that this time they would cross 400 seats. Even after causing so many atrocities and spending so much money, this arrogance of Modi ji and Amit Shah, INDIA has won and Modi has lost. They have even lost in Ayodhya.”
As 'Modi Mantralay' Takes Shape
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 10, 2024
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Watch @thenewshour with @navikakumar. pic.twitter.com/5x3bA6x99k
Rather than acknowledging the mandate that granted the BJP-led NDA a complete majority to establish the government, she appeared to be conveniently suffering from selective amnesia and forgot that her coalition partner Congress had formed governments in 2004 and 2009 despite receiving only 145 and 206 seats, respectively.
Notably, in 2024, the BJP outperformed the opposition and scored more than the entire I.N.D.I. Alliance. Mamata Banerjee even switched off all her lights and sat in darkness during the entire swearing-in ceremony of Modi Cabinet 3.0. The information was posted by alleged journalist turned All India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Sagrika Ghose on social media.
To all those celebrating the “swearing in” of @narendramodi, a message from
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) June 10, 2024
India’s only woman chief minister @MamataOfficial . She switched off all her lights and sat in darkness during the entire so called “ceremony” for a “prime minister” who has resoundingly lost the mandate…
The TMC had won 29 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats compared to 22 in 2019 and reduced the saffron party to 12 from the 18 seats it gained in 2019. The chief minister, however, was more interested in acting belligerently toward the BJP than she was in applauding her party’s phenomenal performance.
Electoral violence: West Bengal vs Odisha
The first significant violent incident during the Odisha elections was reported in Ganjam shortly after the first round of voting on 13th May which involved attacks on the BJP’s Berhampur Lok Sabha candidate, hours after the poll concluded. A BJP worker was fatally hacked by BJD members two days later while participating in a poster campaign in the same district. Notably, there have been some sporadic instances of violence during the polling stages that followed. Reports have surfaced of voters in parts of the state taking the brunt when they defy the directives of candidates.
However, the election has been largely peaceful in Lord Jagannath’s state. As it should be in every functioning democracy, the parties contest the elections peacefully and then congratulate the winner. Despite 25 years of rule by the BJD, power was handed over to BJP without fuss, or violence. Naveen Patnaik exited gracefully, extending warm congratulations to the victors, without any bitterness. No BJD leader has blamed EVMs, security forces, or the ECI. Nobody sat in darkness.
BJP or BJD don’t whine or complain about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) or come up with outrageous allegations to undermine the people’s verdict and discredit India’s electoral process only because they didn’t become victorious.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be expressed about TMC-ruled West Bengal where every election from the panchayat to the assembly and Lok Sabha is fought like a bloody war that claims the lives, property and even the dignity of those who are in opposition in the state. Riots and rape are used as tools of the state apparatus. Many of BJP workers have left their homes and villages in West Bengal after the Lok Sabha election, invoking the distressing memories of the state’s 2021 assembly and 2023 panchayat polls.
Suvendu Adhikari, BJP MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly in a letter to Governor C V Ananda Bose mentioned that 10,000 party workers and their families are seeking refuge at BJP party offices and safehouses following post-election violence that the Trinamool Congress instigated on 4th June. He asked the governor to go to different locations in the state, including ten districts where BJP members have been the victims of twenty such assaults. He also highlighted that the central forces are not being employed to control the deteriorating situation.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court on June 12th issued an interim order extending the stay of central forces stationed in the state. The West Bengal administration was severely criticized by a division bench of Justices Harish Tandon and Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, who maintained that there is “no place for violence in the democratic polity.” The interim order conveyed, “The election ensures the majority opinion of the citizen of the country and its faith and allegiance to a political party to administer and maintain the various facets of the people for their betterment and development, which goes without saying that there is no space for any violence in a democratic polity.”
Furthermore, the TMC allegedly went so far as to target localities that did not vote for them. Trash was reportedly dumped outside “Sunrise Heights,” a housing complex in Central Kolkata’s Beleghata neighbourhood after its 543 residents voted in favour of the BJP. The party leaders were bragging about the same on social media as they referred to the abhorrent act as a “non-violent means of revenge.” This is how the party which regularly cries about saving the Constitution and democracy respects the rights of fellow Indians.
West Bengal: The state which runs red with the blood of the opposition
The most persistent pattern in West Bengal politics is electoral violence. TMC members unleashed havoc on the streets as BJP workers had to flee to neighbouring Assam to save their lives following the results of the 2021 West Bengal assembly election. They spared no effort to intimidate their political opponents. They attacked prominent BJP leaders including the convoy of party president JP Nadda and Kailash Vijayvargiya, then party’s state-unit chief Dilip Ghosh during the election campaign and terrorised the poor BJP workers after the results were out and TMC won for the third consecutive time. Their triumphs seem to give them the incentive to act more aggressively.
According to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who was a cabinet minister at the time, between 300 and 400 BJP workers left Bengal with their families to escape the violence brought on by TMC workers after the election. He clarified that the BJP workers made their way to Dhubri in Assam after being subjected to “brazen persecution & violence.” The Calcutta High Court ordered a court-monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the unrest. It also emphasised the need to uphold law and order during elections and chastised the state administration for its failure to prevent violence and safeguard the citizens.
The CBI found that the violence was indeed politically motivated as TMC members were named as accused in several First Information Reports. Notably, in 2022, a report disclosed that the BJP workers were afraid to return to the state, even after a year.
Similar occurrences transpired during the 2019 Lok Sabha election when even the Election Commission took the unprecedented step of cutting short election campaigning for the seventh phase of the polls in West Bengal due to widespread violence in the state. BJP leader Arjun Singh was even shot at by TMC members as sporadic instances of bloodshed surfaced in different regions of the state. Crude bombs were found in many areas while threats, intimidations, bomb attacks, acts of vandalism, arson and proxy voting were also recorded.
West Bengal, home of Mamata Banerjee, has come to be associated with widespread political violence. Election after election, members of the ruling regime resort to unbridled violence to silence the opposition and their voices, whether it be during the panchayat election in 2018, the Legislative Assembly election in 2021 or the local body polls in 2022.
A comprehensive analysis by the home ministry detailing political violence in West Bengal unveiled 693 occurrences and 11 deaths during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well as 23 deaths on election day and the night before in the 2018 panchayat elections. 852 incidences of political violence were reported between 1st June and 31st December 2019, even after the parliamentary poll. According to the report, voting was not conducted for 3,059 panchayat samiti seats, 16,814 gram panchayat seats and 203 zila parishad seats during the May 2018 panchayat elections since the opposition “could not field candidates.”
“Violence in these areas was aimed to prevent BJP from deploying its polling agents and restricting voter turnout at the polling booths,” the report noted, stressing that the majority of incidents during the panchayat polls occurred in districts where the BJP has made inroads.
The substandard political discourse of TMC
Mamata Banerjee has been making objectionable remarks to damage political discourse in her attempts to disparage her opponents, particularly the BJP. She has gone beyond the bounds of public decorum, from referring to JP Nadda as “Chadda Madda Fadda Bhadda Nadda” to insisting on cooking and feeding PM Modi, a vegetarian, rice and fish. “We will give laddoos made of clay with stones in them to break his teeth,” she announced in 2019 in an apparent reference to PM Modi’s remarks to Bollywood star Akshay Kumar, where he said the TMC supremo sends him special Bengali sweets.
Conclusion
Mamata Banerjee who was the strongest voice against the left and wanted to put an end to their violent means of politics has proven to be just as dangerous to the peace of the state. Under her government, no election is free of unrest, regardless of its result. On the other hand, Odisha peacefully welcomed a new government, with top leaders being graceful and respectful to each other, and the public watching the power of their vote take shape without any fear on their minds.
