How BJP is Beating Mamata in Her Own Game
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections showed the saffron camp reaped the benefits of their fringe organisations’ grassroots-level work. Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram has been organising mass marriages for the last 15 years and working among the tribal populations through its Ekal Vidyalaya for decades.
Another organisation, Sree Hari Satsang, has been organising religious functions among the Adivasis of the North Bengal. RSS has been penetrating among the Matuas for long. Moreover, various fact-finding reports showed, BJP has been mobilising the Hindi-speaking OBCs against the Urdu-speaking Muslims and Bengali speaking lower castes, and Matuas in the bordering districts against the Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators.
There is a fundamental difference between the identity politics of Mamata and the BJP. The saffron camp has a long-term goal of assimilating all these castes and the Adivasis into the fold of Sanatan Hindu religion. Whereas Mamata is looking at…