DEBRA/MIDNAPORE/KOLKATA: In the scorching sun of west Midnapore, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is turning up the heat further. With the BJP putting all its might into the last stretch of the marathon seven-phase-battle for Bengal, Mamata gives the impression of a cornered Bengal tigress lashing out fiercely, ready to take the battle to her opponents. A saffron tide is washing up against the Trinamool Congress’ fortress but Mamata is determined not to yield an inch.In a lush green maidan in Debra village, West Midnapore, a huge crowd jostles under flimsy pandals. The afternoon sun beats down mercilessly. Men shelter under umbrellas. Women fan themselves with 'haath paakhas' (hand fans). TMC workers scurry about, trying to provide water and warning people to move back from the helipad as Mamata’s chopper descends in a swirl of burning red dust. Out she steps, in her customary starched white sari, looking rather unsmiling and grim-faced. Surrounded by a posse of supporters, she rushes towards the podium.On stage she belts out a fiercely impassioned speech, the bulk of which is a relentless harangue against Narendra Modi and the BJP. “Ek dui teen, BJP ke bidai din! (one, two, three; bid goodbye to BJP) India has a fascist government, this election is to transform the government of India, you need to throw out Modi,” she yells. “They think they can win Bengal by making Hindus and Muslims fight. They want votes but we will give them a big rosogolla instead, full of stone chips!”The TMC candidate here in Ghatal Lok Sabha constituency is the film star Deepak Adhikari, but he barely gets a mention in Mamata’s speech which is a no-hold barred attack on Modi. Interestingly the CPM, once the Bengal leviathan which has now all but evaporated from the Bengal landscape, doesn’t figure in her speech at all.This then is the dramatic shift in Bengal’s politics. The Left (once the impregnable Red army which Mamata destroyed seven years ago) is now almost decimated, consigned to near irrelevance. With a weakened Congress struggling for an identity, it’s the BJP which is today Bengal’s principal opposition party. With Bengal’s 30% Muslims known to be off the BJP's radar and firmly with the TMC, both parties are increasingly locked in desperate combat for the Bengali Hindu vote.Analysts here say that while the Left may still retain a 15-20% vote share, it may struggle to win even a single seat this time. In as many as 25 out of Bengal’s 42 LS seats, it’s a direct fight between TMC and BJP.TMC’s hold in Bengal, particularly south Bengal, still remains strong, but the BJP got a record 17% vote share in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls (a spike upward from 4% in the 2011 Vidhan Sabha polls). Although the BJP’s vote share dropped to 10%, vote share in the 2016 Vidhan Sabha polls, there is no denying a growing saffron effect in many constituencies.As Modi and Shah up the Hindutva-ante with chants of Jai Shri Ram and accusations of Mamata’s “Muslim appeasement”, the TMC is responding with slogans of Jai Bangla and Jai Maa Kali. As BJP plays Hindutva nationalism, Mamata is responding with Bengali sub-nationalism, as Lalu Prasad Yadav once did with Bihari sub-nationalism in the 1990s.At the end of her Debra speech, Mamata reels off a set of Hindu shlokas, exhorts her followers to blow conches and urges women to start ‘ulurdhwani.’ (ululations). She throws in 'la illaha illalah' and 'God is great' slogans to underline the TMC’s secular pitch and make sure minorities are not too put off by an over-emphasis on Kali and Durga. In a last ditch attempt to create an overarching ‘Bangla pride’ she ends her speech with, “ebar Bangla Dilli dokhol korbe.” (This time Bengal will capture Delhi).In the mid-1990s when Lalu Yadav found himself under similar pressure from a growing BJP presence in the state, he had pitched his battle as 'secularism' vs 'communalism' and Patna vs Delhi. Mamata, too, has decided to tap into Bengali sub-nationalism against an aggressive BJP with TMC leader Derek O’Brien calling the BJP “an anti Bengali Hindu” party. As the BJP campaigns on Jai Shri Ram and Ram Navmi, the TMC is pitching Durga Puja and Kali Puja as markers of the unique Bengali Hindu tradition, distinct from north Indian Hindutva.The Bangla pride pitch gets applause. “We will close the Mudir dokan or Modir dokan in Bengal, (`Mudir dokan’ in Bengali means grocery shop and is a play on the word Modi)” says Debra home maker Chitrarekha Bhuyan, “Didi ebaar Dilli jaabe”. (Didi will go to Delhi this time.”) What about the frenzied giant rallies held by Modi in Kolkata’s Brigade and other places? “Crowds were brought in from Jharkhand and Odisha,” says local TMC leader Amulya Maity, “the RSS is trying to pick up Bengali boys, take them to training camps and brainwash them. They are not true Bengalis.”Clearly though within TMC ranks, the BJP’s play of the overt Hindutva card has sounded alarm bells. Mamata sounds anxious to rebut that she is not Hindu enough. She has not only challenged Modi to a debate on Hindu shlokas but as TMC’s lone star campaigner, she’s keeping up a hectic schedule of almost three rallies a day in a frantic effort to match the BJP’s roll out of an armada of rallies across Bengal.The saffron footprint among young Bengalis is unmistakable. Referring to the recent arrests of youths for shouting 'Jai Shri Ram’ slogans, Dr Aditya Mukherjee, a 30-year-old cyber security expert sounds an indignant note: “Why is it that people chanting Jai Shri Ram are being detained by police? Where is the TMC government coming from? Is this Pakistan?” asks Mukherjee.Mukherjee says he and many of his friends and colleagues are attracted to Modi because the PM is a “strong nationalist leader.” They all believe that Mamata has gone overboard with her attempts to indulge the Muslim community and orthodox maulanas. “There is no freedom for those who believe in Hindu thought,” says Mukherjee. He adds that many of his generation had voted for TMC in the past thinking it to be a fresh alternative to the Left, but are now disappointed at the lack of industry and jobs.Debashish Bose is a Presidency College graduate, a software engineer and a BJP supporter. “Kolkata’s para (locality) clubs are full of TMC strongmen, who harass us. Bengal needs a strong opposition. With the disappearance of the Left and Congress, many feel BJP is a good alternative”.Kolkata’s intellectuals believe that while the Left steered completely away from religion, the TMC’s own tacit religiosity and the prevailing plebianisation of Bengali culture may have created fertile ground for the rise of Hindutva nationalist sentiments and neglect of intellectual and artistic freedoms. Academic and history professor Tapati Guha Thakurta says the Trinamool’s ruling style is marked by what she calls a “festivalisation of democracy” where politics has been turned into an endless festival of continuous anushtans (events) and pujas.“Durga Puja has always been an inclusive cultural celebration of hedonism, not a religious event in the strict sense. Yet pujas are now sites for political wars between BJP and TMC,” says Guha Thakurta.So is the Bengali bhadralok turning saffron? Film maker Anik Dutta says Hindutva of the Hindi belt variety, has few takers among the Bengali intelligentsia. “Lets face it Bengal is the land of `Meghnad badh kavya’ and `Lakshmaner shaktishel,’(literary works by Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Sukumar Ray critical and even satirical of the Ramayana) and an aggressive Hindutva position would still not be openly voiced in Kolkata social circles, although this may slowly be changing, particularly among the young.”In Midnapore, groups of young males hold aloft saffron banners in preparation for a rally. BJP’s rallies, particularly Modi’s rallies, are dominated by mostly young men attracted to Modi’s macho persona, his harking to warlike nationalism and anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Mamata’s rallies, by sharp contrast are dominated by women, all dressed up in brightly coloured saris with their hair neatly tied and sometimes decorated with flowers, who form Didi’s committed support base.The success of the TMC government’s Kanyashree womens’ education schemes, self-help programmes and healthcare schemes has made Mamata highly popular among women, many of whom call her Bengal’s `agnimeye’ (girl of fire). Along with Muslims, women constitute a formidable votebank for TMC. Yet this is a votebank reliant on the Mamata persona and could splinter if her leadership weakens.Former veteran Congressman and Rajya Sabha MP, now TMC Midnapore candidate Manas Bhuyan believes that the BJP in Bengal is being tacitly supported by the Left to bring down Mamata. “All activists of the BJP here are supplied from the godown of the Left. It’s a united effort. The whole thing has been planned by the Left,” says Bhuyan. Bhuyan is up against BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh and repeats the line that BJP cadres in Bengal are outsiders with no organic support in Bengal.Yet Anusuya Nag, a healthcare professional and Presidency College graduate, disagrees. She says, among the educated middle class, many former Bengali Leftists have drifted to the BJP. “The BJP has never been given a chance in Bengal and should be given a chance here,” she says. “Mamata has created lawlessness and impunity among Bengal’s Muslims which I feel should be checked.”Kolkata cardiologist Dr Kunal Sarkar says Hindutva sentiments among Bengalis are the direct result of Mamata’s perceived Muslim tilt. “Bengalis are desparate for a political alternative. The Left remains captive in its mental prison, they simply don’t attract the young anymore. There is a drift of some bhadralok sections towards the BJP, but we still don’t know the quantum of this drift and whether it will actually manifest itself in voting.”Thus, the BJP’s rise in Bengal is only partially because of cultural and ideological reasons, but essentially a political search for an alternative to TMC dominance. “Bengalis are by and large, very liberal and we don’t buy into north Indian Hindutva or support for activities of gau rakshaks,” says Anusuya Nag, “but we do need an opposition here just to teach Mamata a lesson and not let her become too complacent.”A political analyst says, “The BJP’s 2019 campaign in Bengal is like Mamata’s 2001 campaign: all sound and fury. The BJP’s lack of an organizational machinery means the party won’t get too many votes.”For the moment the TMC’s dominance in election mobilisation will, in all probability, keep its fortresses intact. But many Bengalis, particularly the upwardly mobile urban young, are being drawn towards Hindutva nationalist sentiments. If Mamata and the TMC are unable to reinvent themselves for a new India, this trend could lead to major gains for the BJP in Bengal in the future.