KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress’ spectacular win in the West Bengal polls could be a case study of how a party could prevent massive consolidation of Hindu votes in a state having a 30% Muslim population.
The ruling Trinamool worked on various caste, sub-caste and linguistic groups and also nursed the Bengali sub-nationalism sentiment against BJP’s majoritarian approach to counter-polarize Hindu votes. The BJP strategy worked in pockets but could not give it the push to attain the magic number.
Sociologist and Presidency University’s former head of sociology and political science departments Prasanta Roy said not all Hindus could fit into one lot, much as BJP might have strategized. “There is a degree of Hinduness in each one of us. A section of them is rational and calculative. Not all are Hindus at all costs. They saw everything and took an informed decision,” he said.