RSS mouthpiece Organiser has pointed out three reasons that led to the BJP’s Bengal debacle in the Assembly elections — the induction of Trinamul turncoats, the Centre’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis and the network of beneficiaries that the Mamata Banerjee government created through welfare schemes.

“The beneficiaries created by TMC through different schemes, some of BJP’s wrong steps like welcoming TMC leaders without judging their strength and impact of Covid-19 on last two phases (of the elections) resulted in such decimated performance,” says the article titled “Bad Experiments in Bengal”.

“Only 2% reduced vote share of BJP and 5% votes of Congress + Left shifting to TMC made all these situations,” the article by Naveen Kumar, who has been described as a founder of Pro Survey, Skill and Data Analysis Communications Pvt. Ltd, states.

To point out the severity of the BJP’s drubbing, Kumar in his article said that of the 121 Assembly segments where the BJP led in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it won in only 65 seats in the 2021 Assembly polls.

Without naming the Narendra Modi government, the article says monumental mismanagement of the second wave of Covid-19 might have gone against the BJP in the last two phases of polls. A table with the article shows that of 69 seats that polled in the seventh and eighth phases, the BJP won only 13.

“The mouthpiece of our ideological parent is criticising our poll strategies. What can be more shameful?” a state BJP office-bearer said. “Only if our leaders had listened to us before opening the floodgates for Trinamul turncoats.”

The article is replete with graphs and tables to show how the BJP faltered. Adding insult to injury, it also carries a picture of new BJP convert Mithun Chakraborty with the caption — “the face of the TMC in Rajya Sabha”. The other striking image with the article is that of Union home minister inducting Suvendu Adhikari into the BJP at the December 2020 rally in West Midnapore. Suvendu is Mamata’s former protégé.

Induction of leaders such as Suvendu was the BJP’s bid to create a perception that Trinamul was on the verge of collapse, a ploy that did not work, said a party leader reacting to the Organiser article.

Most turncoats lost.

Though Suvendu managed to humble Mamata in Nandigram, the BJP lost nine of 16 seats in East Midnapore, touted as his bastion.

“We have realised Suvenduda’s image can’t be a counter to Mamata Banerjee’s. She might have lost the key seat to him, but Trinamul won many other seats banking on her charisma,” a BJP leader said.

Criticism had come from across the country and abroad against Modi and home minister Amit Shah for crowded rallies in Bengal during the second wave of the pandemic. Failure of the vaccination drive and Covid deaths for lack of oxygen in many parts of the country added to the underwhelming tally, party sources agreed.

“Anyone can always analyse the results. We as a party are yet to analyse them. However, there are other issues apart from the ones mentioned in the article,” Sayantan Basu, a state BJP general secretary said.

Though he didn’t elaborate on the “other reasons”, sources cited anti-incumbency against some BJP MPs. For instance, Hooghly’s sitting MP Locket Chatterjee lost from Chinsurah Assembly segment, which falls under her own parliamentary constituency.