India: Chaos, cameras, and cracks ahead of Bengal polls

The West Bengal elections will be held in early March and April next year, and they promise to be the biggest battle yet between incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the challenger, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Expect eye-popping sums of money to be spent on the campaign - and blood on the streets.The Waqf Board law is a precursor to the fight for Bengal, where Muslims make up nearly 30 per cent of the electorate. The doughty Banerjee has already declared that she won’t implement the Waqf law in the state. Protests over the law turned violent in Bengal, with three people killed and 150 arrested last Friday. The BJP approached the Calcutta High Court, which called the situation “grave” and immediately ordered the deployment of central armed forces in the affected areas.You would think that with the resurgent BJP ready to throw all its might at the big battle for Bengal, the TMC’s leaders and cadre would be prepared to take on the gargantuan BJP machine—but you would be wrong..Squabble in publicIn an entirely unedifying episode, four TMC Members of Parliament (MPs) squabbled in public, called each other names that would put teenagers to shame, and, worse, unethically recorded colleagues and leaked clips of a delegation that had gone to the Election Commission (EC). The MPs embarrassed the TMC and overshadowed a very successful Parliamentary session the party had otherwise enjoyed..India: 150 arrested in West Bengal violence over Waqf Act.I will share all the details of what went down with my beloved readers of SWAT analysis to showcase how utterly hopeless the current opposition is — filled with entitled, narcissistic leaders who do a disservice to India.The backdrop of the spat was a video posted by the BJP’s social media head Amit Malviya, mocking the TMC. In it, two Lok Sabha MPs — a man and a woman — can be heard abusing each other in the full glare of the EC office and the media waiting outside. A senior MP can be heard pleading for sanity. Even worse, all this was sneakily recorded on a camera phone by a male MP who has changed several parties. The footage was given to the woman MP, who then leaked it.As the BJP watched gleefully, the incredible episode didn’t end there. One of the MPs at the center of the row held a press conference where he further abused his colleague, followed by WhatsApp messages in the TMC group that were in incredibly poor taste..Colleague mockedMultiple-term MPs attacking each other like college kids, mocking a colleague with remarks like “you’ve had one too many,” and calling a woman MP an “international lady with many boyfriends.”The spat left Kolkata, Banerjee, and the top echelons of Delhi reeling..India’s Mumbai: City of dreams ruled by nightmares.Authoritative sources said Banerjee was furious—she’s truly had enough this time. “We have 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha, yet one in particular is always seeking attention, getting into ridiculous controversies, and bringing a bad name to the party. The entire rank and file feel this MP is an opportunist, using our platform and always in cahoots with a national party. Didi was very upset with her earlier, but now she’s done. She is tired of this MP always trying to be the star, always hogging the limelight. Didi knows the party sentiment well. As for the other MP—invading the privacy of colleagues and showing utter disloyalty is even worse than attention-seeking. Action will be taken—and soon—against both errant MPs. The WhatsApp gent will be let off with a gentle ticking off from Didi,” a senior leader told Gulf News..Factional tensionThe background to the fight is factional tension among the MPs. The Banerjee-loyalist Bengal faction feels the new, glamorous lot is only interested in chasing the limelight and not working for the party. Even opening a counter for Bengali sweets inside Parliament sparked the EC fracas, with one group alleging the party hierarchy wasn’t respected.Pretty quintessential Bengal politics—a rasgulla storm in a teacup.But seriously, contrast this public meltdown with the discipline in BJP ranks, where any rumblings are kept far from the public gaze and a united face is presented to voters and the media.Banerjee knows she is fighting with her back to the wall, with the BJP sensing weakness and factionalism. This kind of errant behavior only fuels the perception of a party in disarray.The Waqf law has handed Banerjee a rallying point, and she’s seizing it with both hands. But this time around, the Bengal elections will be Didi’s biggest challenge yet. And her MPs aren’t really helping. .Swati Chaturvedi is an award-winning journalist and author of ‘I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s Digital Army’.