Ahead of elections, BJP taps football and cinema to boost party prospects

With Assembly elections less than a year away in West Bengal, the BJP is turning to culture, cinema, and sport to build grassroots support, resolve internal organisational challenges, and expand its political footprint.

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Its initiatives include organising a parallel film festival as an alternative to the Kolkata International Film Festival, and launching the ‘Narendra Cup Football Tournament’ to engage young party workers and promote unity at the local level.

Parallel film festival

A key part of the BJP’s cultural strategy is the promotion of The Bengal Files, a controversial film directed by Vivek Agnihotri. Though the movie was released nationally on September 5, it has not been screened in Bengal’s cinema halls.

The BJP views this as exclusion influenced by the state government. In response, the party is organising a parallel film festival to provide a platform to project its political narrative and counter the cultural clout of the ruling TMC.

The TMC's influence over the Tollygunge-based Bengali film industry is well known, with several of its MLAs and MPs hailing from the tinsel world.

Focus on Bengali films

The event, to be held in November, has been planned as per the directive of the party’s central leadership, and it will be coordinated by the party’s two actor-turned-politicians, Rupa Ganguly and Rudranil Ghosh, according to BJP sources.

They say Indian, international, and regional films will also be screened at the event, with several central government auditoriums in the city likely to be rented for the purpose. However, the primary focus will be on Bengali films that the ruling dispensation in the state is accused of trying to suppress.

Rudranil Ghosh said the proposed film festival, initiated by the BJP, will feature films that are denied screen space in West Bengal because the TMC government does not approve of them.

Football for fostering unity

Football is another popular medium the BJP is trying to tap into as it gears up for its own 'khela hobe' moment.

A tournament kicked off on Thursday across the BJP’s 43 organisational districts in the state. Around 1,300 mandal units of the party are competing for the trophy. The final match is scheduled to be held on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, September 17, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, BJP MP from Purulia and convenor of the organising committee, told The Federal.

Each of the 43 winning teams will receive Rs 50,000, and the runners-up will receive Rs 25,000. The other two semi-finalists will get Rs 15,000 each. The tournament aims to improve coordination and build camaraderie among the party’s younger members, he added.

Given the internal divisions within the BJP in Bengal, the football tournament is seen as an unorthodox strategic effort to promote unity.

Due to deep-seated divisions, the party’s Bengal unit has so far failed to form a new committee, even though it has been over two months since Samik Bhattacharya took charge as the state president.

Not much optimism

The tournament aims to build rapport and friendship among not only young grassroots workers, but also senior local-level leaders, who will be actively involved in organising the tournament, another senior BJP leader said.

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“The tournament will help us bring together at least 15 to 20 young men in every block (mandal). Moreover, such a sporting event will also help ease any tension or misunderstanding among our block-level leaders,” he added.

Not many within the party are optimistic about the tournament achieving its stated goal of fostering unity.

“Such camaraderie at the grassroots level is unlikely to emerge unless there is unity among the party’s top leadership, which remains divided along the lines of old guards and newcomers,” said another BJP leader.