With the Bihar elections done and dusted, the spotlight has now shifted to the West Bengal Assembly polls, slated for March-April next year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the ball rolling through his speech after the NDA's spectacular victory in Bihar, where he invoked symbolism, saying the Ganga flows from Bihar to Bengal and that they would uproot the jungle raj there as well.

While such rhetoric is effective, deep inside the BJP, there is an acknowledgement that this is easier said than done, especially with the iron grip Mamata Banerjee's government has maintained over West Bengal for the past 15 years. Whether the Mamata Banerjee government is truly popular or not is beside the point. If Modi is accused of engaging in “jumlebaazi” or mere rhetoric, Banerjee is a master of political theatrics. None can forget the cast on her uninjured leg as she moved around in a wheelchair just before the 2021 elections. The cast vanished as soon as her party, Trinamool Congress, secured a landslide victory, and there was no limp in sight, defying medical logic.

However, beneath the surface, Banerjee is already unsettled. Her resistance to the routine Special Intensive Revision (SIR) being undertaken by the Election Commission in West Bengal, alongside nine other states, betrays her apprehension that the exercise may reduce her dedicated vote bank,........

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