BJP makes its presence felt
By Tathagat Roy

The year 1990 marked a turning point for BJP in West Bengal, when the Ram Mandir movement caught public imagination and shifted focus to the good work being done by the party. As a result, BJP's share of votes jumped to more than eleven per cent in 1991 elections. Unfortunately, since party's support base was distributed almost uniformly all over the State, this increased percentage of votes did not lead to an entry in State Assembly.

Though votes were gained by the euphoria of 1991, this commendable performance was not repeated in its entirety in 1996 Lok Sabha elections. The party's share slipped to around 6 per cent and remained there for a short period. In 1997, when Kumari Mamata Banerjee formed her Trinamool Congress (TMC), it occupied a bit of BJP's political space in the State.

From 1998, BJP and TMC developed an electoral understanding and worked out a viable plan for seat adjustment. This enabled BJP to translate its public support into victory from 2 seats in 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

However, TMC parted ways with BJP. The result was unfortunate for both BJP, and quite bad for TMC too because, BJP did not win any seat and TMC lost its chance of getting a majority.

After elections, TMC returned to NDA. A mutual understanding between BJP and TMC was necessary because people favoured it. Further, the polarised politics of Bengal made it impossible to get a decent result without such an alliance. This is the understanding on which BJP contested Panchayat elections in 2003, Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and is now preparing for the 2006 Assembly elections.

However, BJP will have to account for CPI(M)'s politics of murder and electoral fraud, which has increased to such an extent that it is incomprehensible to people outside West Bengal.