ABSTRACT
The West Bengal electorates after more than four decades opted in large numbers for a national party with greater national representation and strong leadership. These ‘newfound’ BJP supporters were responding positively to the BJP call of ‘real poribarton’ rather than getting swayed by the much-fancied AITC narrative of poribarton (change). The BJP, authors argue, turned the election into a kind of referendum on its nationalist project, culturally represented by ‘Bharat Mata’, against the similar effort made by the AITC to showcase the regional Bangla identity epitomised by its ‘Jai Bangla’ slogan and also the version of ‘Bengali left politics’ of the CPM led the Left front. Relatively better organisational strength of the BJP at the national level against the one-woman show of the AITC helped the party to mark its presence for the first time in an impressive manner. The authors argue that the near complete erosion of the support bases of the Left parties and also the Congress has meant that the BJP would be posing a major challenger to the ruling AITC in emerging bipolar party competition, a prediction that has come true in the 2021 assembly election in the state.
