Opinion: How Yogi Adds X Factor To BJP’s West Bengal Election Campaign |
Opinion: How Yogi Adds X Factor To BJP’s West Bengal Election Campaign
While Yogi is scheduled to address 8-10 rallies in the state, the BJP cadre, for good reason, want to see a lot more of him
This overheated election season in West Bengal, CM Yogi Adityanath has been called “Bulldozer Buddhi" and asked to “go back to UP and drink Fanta".
His momentary slip of tongue during a speech misattributing Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s quote “give me blood, I will give you freedom" to Swami Vivekananda (which he quickly corrected) has been relentlessly mocked and attacked.
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But the ground reality is slightly different. After PM Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah, Yogi is the most effective and high-voltage campaigner in West Bengal. His rallies have witnessed peak saffron frenzy.
The state BJP supporters see the Uttar Pradesh chief minister as the ultimate panacea for wanton corruption and brazen Muslim appeasement. They openly say that West Bengal needs a CM like Yogi today.
So, the deployment of Yogi Adityanath as a star campaigner drawing crowds is also a sophisticated evolution in the BJP’s organisational strategy. It is not merely for religious polarisation; rather, it is part of a nuanced, multi-dimensional chess game which includes demographic arithmetic.
Yogi is not sent to address generic rallies. He is deployed in specific pockets in north and south Bengal, as well as industrial areas on the outskirts of Kolkata where there is a high density of Hindi-speaking voters.
Many are migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh living in Bengal for decades. They are Bengalis by documentation and residence, yet culturally quite distinct. The TMC has often vacillated between courting them and dismissing them as outsiders to stoke Bengali sub-nationalism.
Yogi serves as the ultimate cultural validator for this demographic. His oratory and stature send a powerful message: that the Hindi heartland stands with them. By consolidating this Matrubhashi vote, the BJP is building an impregnable arithmetic base to offset the TMC’s solid Muslim votebank.
West Bengal also has a significant and historically important presence of the Nath sampraday, the denomination of Shaivite monks which Yogi Adityanath comes from. Because of their prominent ear piercings, they are called “kan-phata yogis".
Naths are concentrated in Hooghly (which has the Mahanad Nath Mutt), Purba Medinipur (Siddhinath Mandir), Bardhaman, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, and Alipurduar. Naths in Bengal are often householders (not always ascetics) doing farming, small businesses, and traditional occupations. Many are OBC and have been demanding recognition and reservation.
Yogi’s appeal is obvious among them.
But beyond the Hindi speakers and the Nath community, Yogi Adityanath appeals at the subliminal level to local Bengalis. The state, after all, has had a long line of sanyasis involved in nation-building and revolutionary activities like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. The seeds of Hindu nationalism were planted in the Bengal of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay who wrote Bande Mataram in his pioneering Ananda Mutt, which captured the fierce patriotism of the Sanyasi Vidroh or the monks’ rebellion.
Sanyasis fascinate Bengal. Whether it is the story of Sanyasi Raja, the king from East Bengal who gave up his kingdom and returned years later as a monk, or the highly speculated premise that Netaji came back as the monk Gumnami Baba, gerua (the colour that Yogi wears) is intricately blended into Bengal’s popular imagination.
In contrast to scam-tainted TMC brass from Abhishek Banerjee to Partho Chatterjee, Yogi is seen as incorruptible. The strong governance angle to Yogi’s appeal transcends identity politics. West Bengal has suffered from economic stagnation and a breakdown in law and order, with the local party and government machinery being part of the problem.
Young men and women have left the state in droves because of a lack of opportunities, while Yogi has taken UP from being a BIMARU state to aggressive industrialisation and infrastructure expansion.
But his greatest appeal lies in how he deals with criminals and Islamists as a no-nonsense administrator. Whether it is through encounters or bulldozing houses of the mafia, Yogi stands for instant justice.
His brand of unabashed, raw Hindutva stands in stark contrast with the effete, cowardly, and hypocritical secularism of a section of Bengal’s intellectual class, who are always ready to bend to the increasing audacity of Islamists, heedless of the waves of genocide and ethnic cleansing unleashed on Hindus since before Independence till today.
The BJP uses Yogi to promise a return of dignity and safety to the Hindu majority, which often feels alienated by CM Mamata Banerjee’s appeasement politics.
While Yogi is scheduled to address 8-10 rallies in the state, the BJP cadre, for good reason, want to see a lot more of him.