The challenge before the new West Bengal government is straightforward: Can it move the state from its current 16th rank in per capita income to the levels of Haryana (third) and Gujarat (fifth)?
The more the BJP does well against regional forces, the more the state appears unitary and driven by a single impulse. The victory is not of the BJP alone but of the Jana Sangh-BJP’s foundational idea of “one nation, one culture”.
Like when Mamata first came to power riding on the Left Front’s “excesses” in Singur and Nandigram, BJP had highlighted women’s safety citing the R G Kar rape and murder case.
The one unmistakable message from the results of the Assembly elections was that of a yearning for change. And the incumbents, from the TMC in Bengal to D to DMK to LDF, bore the brunt. Only Assam and Puducherry bucked the trend.
