From taking a swipe at the Congress from her ‘Sarba Dharma (all-faith)’ rally in Kolkata’s Muslim-dominated Park Circus area on the day of the Ayodhya Ram Temple’s consecration event to targeting the party for reaching out to the minority voters during its Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra at a time when the BJP is raising its Ayodhya pitch to woo Hindus – West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee has been making all attempts to hold on to her crucial Muslim vote bank in the state even at the expense of the Opposition INDIA alliance.

Addressing party workers in Kolkata on Friday during her sit-in protest against the Centre for “withholding” funds under various welfare schemes, Mamata said, “I asked the Congress to fight in 300 seats (and leave the rest for INDIA partners in the Lok Sabha polls), but they did not listen. Now, they have come to the state to create a stir among Muslim voters. The BJP is trying to create a stir among Hindu voters. What will secular parties like us do? I don’t know if (the Congress) will even win 40 seats if they contest 300.”

After announcing that her party would not ally with the Congress in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Mamata’s statement against the latter signalled that the TMC does not want a division of minority votes, which her party has cornered since coming to power in Bengal in 2011.

On January 22, at the TMC’s all-faith rally, Mamata urged the Muslim voters not to “waste their votes” by supporting any party other than the TMC.

The previous CPM-led Left Front government in Bengal had traditionally enjoyed the support of the Muslim community. However, the 2007 case of Rizwanur Rahman, who was allegedly driven to suicide by his influential Hindu in-laws, and the Nandigram and Singur land agitations between 2006 and 2008, all of which fuelled the TMC’s rise against the Left Front, swung the Muslim vote in Mamata’s favour.

After coming to power in 2011, the TMC government further consolidated the minority vote by announcing allowances for imams, scholarships for Muslim students, creation of welfare boards, and a Rs 50-crore grant for government-recognised madrasas. Mamata also threw her weight behind the movement against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act)-NRC (National Register of Citizens in the state that continued between December 2019 and January 2020.

Such policies were followed by her party winning election after election in Bengal. In the panchayat elections of 2018 and 2023, and the Assembly elections of 2021, minority voters returned the favour by giving the TMC their full support. This was evident in the 2021 Assembly polls when both the Congress and the Left Front failed to win any of the 294 Assembly seats despite forging an alliance, which included the fledgling Indian Secular Front (ISF).

However, in 2023, the TMC witnessed its first electoral defeat in the state after the 2021 polls. Bayron Biswas, the Left-backed Congress candidate, won the Sagardighi Assembly bypoll in February 2023.

This bypoll assumed significance as it was held in the Murshidabad district, which has the highest Muslim population in the state at 66.28%. The result was viewed as a sign of the TMC’s eroding minority vote bank. Following the defeat, Mamata had ordered changes in the leadership of the party’s minority cell. In May 2023, Biswas also switched to the TMC.

With Mamata recently announcing that the TMC would contest the Lok Sabha polls alone in Bengal, the stage is set for a three-cornered contest, which may see the minority vote get divided between the TMC and Left-Congress alliance. The BJP is the principal Opposition in the state.

The TMC needs to get as much support as possible from the Muslim community, which accounts for 27% of the state’s population, to counter the BJP’s Hindutva politics. The minority vote could prove crucial for the TMC as the BJP seeks to consolidate its Hindu base by banking on Hindutva and the Ram Temple.

Of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, there are 7 that have Muslims in a majority and another 6 where the minority votes can be the deciding factor. In the 2019 polls, the TMC had won 3 of the 7 Muslim-majority seats and all 6 seats with sizeable Muslim population.

As Congress leader Rahul Gandhi brought his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra to Bengal’s Muslim-dominated Murshidabad and Malda districts, Mamata launched an all-out attack, claiming that the grand old party may not be able to win even 40 seats this time.

On Saturday, Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury hit back at Mamata. “Mamata Banerjee has been alleging that the Congress is talking about different things to get Muslim votes. The BJP is also saying that the grand old party will be weaker in the coming days, and Didi (Mamata) is saying nothing is possible by the Congress… It’s quite unfortunate to see a leader who is in the INDIA bloc say such things,” Chowdhury reportedly told media persons at the party’s Murshidabad office. “It seems that Mamata Banerjee is scared of the BJP and that is the reason she is changing her stance every day.”

State Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy told The Indian Express that Mamata was indulging in “competitive communalism”. “While the BJP is seeking votes over the Ram Mandir inauguration, the TMC is doing the same over the Jagannath temple inauguration (to be held in Digha later this year). The Congress is taking out the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra against communal polarisation and divisive politics of the BJP-led NDA government. Why is she under the impression that the rally is being held to divide the people? She is attacking the Yatra to give the BJP some breathing space. In reality, she wants to divide the people along religious lines to mislead the people. She wants to keep the BJP in good humour,” he alleged.

State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said his party only believes in “decisive” politics. “Her (Mamata’s) brand of secularism is that she will chant ‘Jai Maa Kali’ in the morning and attend Muslim rallies in the evening. She is used to this kind of politics. The Congress, too, is no different. Her politics is divisive politics and our politics is decisive politics,” he told The Indian Express.