KOLKATA: In the last Lok Sabha election , when the Modi wave carried BJP and NDA to a brute majority in the Lok Sabha, BJP won just two of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats. It was just one seat more than the 2009 election, when it won only Darjeeling, but the preview to an emerging story lay in the BJP's vote share: from just 6.1 per cent in 2009, it rose to 16.8 per cent in 2014.Five years on, BJP is talking up Bengal as one of the states where it will make gains. At a rally in North Bengal's Alipurduar on Friday, BJP chief Amit Shah said the party will win 23 seats . On the other hand, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee , who has emerged nationwide as the face of anti-BJP opposition, has set an all-42 target for her party.There is no doubt that BJP is a growing force in Bengal. In the 2016 assembly elections, it increased its vote share (10.3 per cent) to within touching distance of Congress (12.4 per cent). In terms of seats, the party bagged only three of the 294 in the assembly, but compared with 2011 when it won no seats, its vote share was up by 6 per cent. And as BJP grew, CPM suffered the heaviest losses - in a state it ruled for three decades, CPM's vote share fell by 10 per cent or more in both the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2016 Assembly polls In subsequent polls, BJP has improved further. The party came second in municipal elections such as Durgapur and Cooper's Camp in Nadia and was ahead of CPM and Congress taken together in the 2018 panchayat polls.But it's not the CPM or Congress which BJP needs to worry about in Bengal. Mamata's Trinamool Congress bagged nearly 40% of the votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and a whopping 45.3 per cent in the assembly polls of 2016. It improved its vote share significantly as well in both elections, sealing its position as the overwhelmingly dominant political power in Bengal, where it currently holds 34 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats and 211 of the 294 assembly seats.While Mamata focuses her attack on the Modi government on issues like demonetisation , intolerance, and using central agencies against the opposition, the BJP camp is galvanised too because it feels it has sensed a "groundswell" against Trinamool. It wants to turn the tables on Mamata riding the post-Balakot sentiment; it is aiming at a counter-consolidation of the majority community against Trinamool's perceived "minority appeasement" and "vote bank" politics.The perception is growing in some areas, manifest in communal incidents in at least 10 places in post-2014 Bengal. In the Cooch Behar and Uluberia Lok Sabha bypolls and Kanthi and Noapara assembly bypolls, BJP made significant gains and came second. Some of the seats where BJP is eyeing a good show, if things work to plan, are Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Raiganj, Balurghat, Malda (North), Krishnanagar, Ranaghat, Purulia, Midnapore, Asansol, Kolkata (North), Howrah, Barrackpore and Bongaon.But BJP is yet to gain the mass base and organisational muscle to take on Trinamool in many seats. It has eroded Left and Congress vote banks but is yet to make a dent in the Trinamool's ascending vote share, except in pockets. The party had a 20 per cent and above vote share in as many 12 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 even at the height of the Modi wave. After Balakot, BJP has often used "anti-India" and pro-Pakistan" labels for the opposition.Mamata, meanwhile, has her problems. The opposition hasn't united in Bengal; Left and Congress continue to be her vocal political rivals. There's also wariness on disgruntled Trinamool workers and violent intraparty feuds. Security has been increased for as many as 17 Trinamool leaders, showing that the party is not confident about its own men.Bengal will vote in all seven phases. And the voter will have a lot of time to think.