A few thoughts, jostling in my head like a bag full of wet cats, on the upcoming #WestBengalElections, which I wanted to put out just to put my mind at ease #Thread

1. Mamata Banerjee may not be my favourite politician, but by deciding to take the fight to the BJP by contesting from Nandigram, she has shown remarkable grit & courage. We are used to opposition hiding in safe seats or migrating to one if they even smell a whiff of defeat

2. Unlike the weak men who claim to be opposing the BJP but prefer to defend their tiny family boroughs instead of taking on the behemoth, she is taking the fight to the BJP, & in that process galvanising her beleaguered cadre base. This should offer a lesson in leadership.

3.Whether she would have lost Bhawanipur is speculation.There were plenty of safe seats to choose from. Instead she took the fight straight into enemy camp. Foolhardy? History will remember her differently for showing courage - a rare quality in Indian opposition parties of today

4. 2nd pt. - Educated progressives who don't want the BJP to win are cajoling everyone to drop their resistance to Mamata and vote for the TMC. There is a scalar mismatch here. Those making those demands are often cocooned in priveged enclaves.

5. They don't face the everyday forms of micro corruption that a lot of other people face. Anyone telling me that TMC legislators are all clean shouldn't forget that many of them were the "benojal" -(dirty water), as they were called, who switched from the CPI (M) to TMC in 2011

6. Many of them are already switching to the BJP anyways. Point being, this demand for supporting TMC at all costs from the educated elites rings hollow on the ground because they are not at the receiving end of TMCs jobbery taking place at a different end of the class spectrum.

7. What will perhaps make a difference is if TMC carefully selects it's candidates and get the ones known for grift, & unpopular with their constituents, out of the 2021 campaign, which will send a positive message.

8. Finally, just like the lazy rhetoric of blaming black voters in the US, for not turning up in large numbers to vote for the Democrats, i.e., if the latter loses, I see Muslims being given the same treatment in #WestBengalElections.

9. This is where all the criticism of any diversification of Muslim political choice stems from, as we are witnessing with Owaisi. Muslims are not allowed any electoral experiment in this calculus. This political demand is extremely reductionist & counterproductive.

10. No one is demanding the educated, left leaning, erstwhile CPI(M) voters to understand the danger & vote strategically. The mass exodus of CPI(M) cadres to BJP is normalised. So is the shift in voting patterns of the small town middle class.

11. Instead, take the easy option of shepherding Muslims & interpret the exercising their choice as "vote splitting". Why not galvanise the educated Hindu middle class who should understand that the BJP they want to vote for is the same TMC 'benojal' that they want to get rid of?

12. Only clever political groundwork will shape #WestBengalElection2021. Not expectations & demands around how others should vote.

Fin.