{"product_id":"battleground-bengal-the-political-future-of-a-fiercely-contested-state-sayantan-ghosh-vintage-books","title":"Battleground Bengal: The Political Future Of A Fiercely Contested State by Sayantan Ghosh [Paperback]","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLong considered a bastion of the Left, the state of West Bengal has been politically dominated by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for more than a decade, to the extent that the opposition parties here have been reduced to electoral irrelevance. But over the last few years, the TMC has been faced with a new challenger: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has slowly made inroads into the state’s political arena, winning seventy-seven seats in the 2021 assembly election, a significant jump from its 2016 tally of three assembly seats.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDoes this mean that the end is near for the TMC as the BJP prepares for a historic wipeout, reminiscent of the Left’s decimation in 2011? Or will Mamata Banerjee manage to hold her own by utilizing her grassroots presence and still-formidable public appeal? In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBattleground Bengal\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, author and scholar Sayantan Ghosh attempts to answer these questions, and to gauge the anxiety and excitement in the build-up to the 2026 assembly election in the state.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough archival documents, electoral data, interviews with political leaders and experts, and years of field reporting, Ghosh presents a critique of the contemporary political scene―from Mamata’s welfare-oriented populism to the BJP’s organizational crises―and looks back at the state’s recent history for clues about its possible future. In the final analysis, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBattleground Bengal\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e reveals how identity, patronage and fear continue to shape Bengal’s politics, regardless of who is at the helm.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Vintage Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48468500971770,"sku":"VKBRXFC4ZH2S","price":520.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0704\/0473\/5226\/files\/9780143478683_1_1.jpg?v=1787072342","url":"https:\/\/versoz.co.in\/products\/battleground-bengal-the-political-future-of-a-fiercely-contested-state-sayantan-ghosh-vintage-books","provider":"VERSOZ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}