Behind bloodshed in Bengal: restive Muslims moving from TMC to BJP

The local TMC leadership has dismissed suggestions of any such movement, claiming that only a “disgruntled section” of Muslims and “mostly the corrupt ones” have shifted to BJP. But Makra and neighbouring Parui — where the latest clashes took place — provide a window to this shift.

Sheikh Saukat Ali, 61, father of Tausif, explains, “This village, with 1,200 voters, was a traditional support base of Forward Bloc. However, in 2009, all of us joined TMC. This was one of the strongest support base of TMC under the Sainthia block. But in the past three years, we did not get our dues under MNREGA. The TMC panchayat members have taken away our job cards and bank pass books too.
Those who protested were tortured.”

Ali’s anger at the TMC does not end there. “There was infighting over sharing extortion money in the village, and resentment started brewing,” he adds. “We found that the minorities were being neglected by the TMC as they were by the CPM before. We needed a shelter. This July, all of us – barring 12 houses – in the village of Makra joined BJP.”

According to BJP’s Birbhum district president, Doodhkumar Mondal, “(Ali’s son) Tousif is BJP’s third Muslim martyr in Bengal. The region is witnessing a new political turf battle here.” All the “three Muslim martyrs” that the BJP is claiming as its own are from Birbhum: Sheikh Rahim who was hacked to death in Illambazar in July; Sheikh Emanul who was shot dead in Illambazar on October 9; and now, Makra’s Tausif Sheikh.

A cross-section of villagers and political workers at the panchayat level told The Indian Express that over 250 villages in at least 24 gram panchayats spread over three assembly segments of Birbhum – Sainthia, Rampurhat and Bolpur – have swung towards the BJP in recent months. Significantly, the three assembly segments are dominated by minorities, with Muslims constituting around 60 per cent of the population.

For the people here, the TMC appears to have morphed from being an answer to the CPM to become a question mark of its own. Consider the complaints of Makra’s Muslims:
* There is only one sub-divisional hospital at Siyan, 27km away; the nearest primary health centre, with two doctors, is at Illambazzar, 17km from the village.
* Despite “gheraoing” the panchayat, demanding development and payment for MNREGA workers, the villagers were rebuffed.
Asked why the TMC won all 11 seats in Batika gram panchayat under which Makra falls, Tousif’s father Ali says, “There was no voting as there were no opponents.”

“We were forced to leave the TMC,” says Sheikh Azharauddin, a BJP leader in the area. “We used to work for the party honestly. But then, we saw how we were being marginalised. The panchayat was almost defunct. This year, the villagers dug eight ponds but no payments were made (under MNREGA). We were asked to open bank accounts which we did nine months ago. But no money was deposited.”

According to the villagers, the provocation for Monday’s violence came from a team of TMC workers called the “Action Force” that included 11 party supporters from Makra. To prove their point, they point to the third victim in Monday’s violence. Inquiries by this newspaper revealed that Soleman Sheikh did not belong to any of the villages in the area. He was a TMC worker from Dubrajpur, about 30 km away from Makra.

The political graph of this shift is equally revealing:
* During the days leading up to and immediately after the Lok Sabha polls, voting patterns showed a clear shift of the CPM’s support base to the BJP in North Bengal and some other districts. In Birbhum, it was the TMC that was losing its base to BJP.

* In the elections, BJP got at least 30 per cent of votes in the assembly segments dominated by Muslims in Birbhum district. In Rampurhat, where Muslims constitute over 50 per cent of the population, BJP received a vote share of 25 per cent to TMC’s 34 per cent. In Dubrajpur, it bagged a vote share of 26 per cent, and in Sainthia, 21 per cent. According to senior BJP leaders, these areas had never given the BJP more than 10 per cent of the vote share before.

Rahul Sinha, state president of the BJP, says the TMC’s “politics of minority appeasement” has begun to backfire. “The TMC had to come to power with 28 per cent of the Muslim vote and another 6-8 per cent from its own vote bank. But if 10-12 per cent of the Muslim vote now swings towards the BJP, a different political history is on the anvil,” he adds, when asked about the Makra-Parui flare-up.
However, Anubrata Mondal, the TMC’s district president, refutes suggestions that Muslims are leaving his party to join the BJP. He says, “All these Muslims had come to TMC from the CPM and now a disgruntled section of them – mostly the corrupt ones – is switching over to the BJP in some areas. There is no threat to our party’s support base.”