This year is going to witness the fiercest contested election—the assembly elections of West Bengal. This is because elections in Bengal, starting from the rural body polls, are so intensely contested that they never fail to gain the attention of the national media.

After failing to occupy power in the last 2021 elections, this time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been determined to defeat the ruling Trinamool Congress-led Mamata Banerjee government, which is defending 15 years of anti-incumbency. However, defeating TMC, which relies on Mamata’s popularity and its well-oiled ground organisation, is extremely challenging. The saffron party is aware of that. It knows that to win Bengal, it has to connect with the masses—and for that it needs to deliver proper messages that resonate with the voters.

One of the main weapons of the BJP against Mamata-led TMC is to polarise the majority Hindus on religious lines. To be fair, this has been possible due Mamata’s blatant religious minority (particularly Muslims) appeasement policy. After coming to power in 2011 for the first time, banking on the anti-incumbency generated by the 34-year-old Left Front government led by Communist Party of India (Marxist), Mamata carefully crafted a strategy to build a strong Muslim vote bank through the policy of open appeasement. Her government started a monthly allowance of Rs 2,500 for Imams and Rs 1,500 for Muezzins, a controversial step later struck down by Calcutta High Court in 2013 as it was unconstitutional. A government should work for all sections. If the government wants to give allowances to Muslim religious clergy then why not to Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh priests and Christian clergy? Why only use public taxes only for Muslim clergy? Clearly,........

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