It is not pleasant to have to admit that the victorious rival was right. Not that the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief, Dilip Ghosh, acknowledged in so many words the aptness of Mamata Banerjee’s comments about ‘outsiders’ coming in to campaign for his party. But he apparently did tell BJP leaders from the Centre that the state unit would be able to manage matters in Bengal. That is, the leaders from the Centre were welcome to leave. The applause this evoked from the members of the state organization suggests that Mr Ghosh had given expression to their feelings. The BJP’s defeat in the state is being put down by BJP workers to the aggressive onslaught by party leaders of national stature whom Ms Banerjee accused repeatedly of not being in tune with the sensibilities and aspirations of the residents of Bengal. If that is seen as a cultural failure, equally important was the imposition of candidates who were, ironically, considered ‘outsiders’ by the BJP workers. They campaigned for unfamiliar contestants, only to be left, as many of them have complained, in the middle of post-poll violence with no support. Ms Banerjee’s label of ‘outsiders’ underlined the absence of regional rootedness; Mr Ghosh has indirectly pointed to that too.

But this was only after the BJP’s defeat. Mr Ghosh’s annoyance is understandable, but it has to be asked if he would have spoken differently had the leaders from ‘outside’ refrained from coming quite so often. The BJP made clear that it was going to ‘take control’ of the state, whether by overrunning iconic sites such as the Coffee House, or by forcing people to say “Jai Shri Ram”, or by threatening to intervene in everything from love to citizenship. Did Mr Ghosh have a different message or does he think that ‘taking control’ or worshipping the cow or children taking up arms during Ram Navami would have seemed more acceptable to the people living in Bengal had he put them in his inimitable way? His comments about Ms Banerjee, especially regarding showing off her injured leg, were perfectly in tune with the national BJP culture of publicly insulting and deriding women. Disappointment seems to have brought out the leader in him, though: his followers in the state are pleased with his stand.