The message from West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is loud and clear: “Request you all in Bihar to please vote to re-elect Nitish Kumarji as CM [Chief Minister] for greater need of our country and development in State.”
Ms. Banerjee posted the message on Twitter and within hours it spread on social networking sites and was picked up by television channels and online news portals.
The message comes only a couple of days before the third phase of elections in Bihar, when 50 of the 243 Assembly seats will go to the polls. In the next 10 days or so, two-thirds of the 243 constituencies will follow suit. But why did she choose to remind the people of West Bengal — many of whom are from Bihar — “greater need[s]” to vote for the grand alliance days before the next round of poll?
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“Probably because she is planning a federal front in the long run,” said Maidul Islam, a faculty member of the Political Science department in the Presidency University. Ms. Banerjee adjusted her political strategy several times since the 2014 Lok Sabha election. The latest one, according to observers, was to form a broad ideological consensus across the country against the BJP. Many feel such an initiative may help her in the coming election in the State. Ms. Banerjee met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal twice recently.
Prof. Islam also said that Ms. Banerjee used the Bihar election to address “a section of her voters” in West Bengal.
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“The Chief Minister has not criticised the Dadri lynching, but she used the Bihar election to send a message to her vote bank in Bengal that she is against the BJP,” Prof. Islam said. While he did not name the “section,” it was evident that it meant minorities in the State. West Bengal has the second highest Muslim population, in terms of actual numbers, after Uttar Pradesh.
The message comes a couple of days before the third phase of elections in Bihar