While all eyes are on Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal could provide an equally intriguing battle. Narendra Modi's twin rallies on Saturday were, as he said in a different context, "just the trailer". Even as the prime minister held forth in Thakurnagar in the afternoon and Durgapur in the evening, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh flew in to address a rally at Falakata in Alipurduar district of north Bengal.

In the next eight days, BJP's ‘star’ campaigners may hold more than 10 rallies in the state, according to reports. Modi may address another rally in Jalpaiguri on Friday, Singh may visit Chinsurah while Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath may address four rallies in the next few days. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is also flying in to hold a couple of rallies. The controversy over Amit Shah’s recent rally is yet to die down. The BJP is clearly training all its guns on Bengal, and in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee it has an astute and fiery adversary.

The Trinamool Congress-ruled state in India's eastern corner provides 42 seats to the Lok Sabha. The BJP is desperate to corner at least half of these seats though its stated target is 23. BJP's focus comes out of a general consensus and a belief — reinforced by its recent reverses in three Hindi heartland states — that its performance in north and central India this time will not be able to match the highs of 2014, when it along with allies won 73 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, and altogether 78 out of 80 seats in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

If Assembly polls in these states are any metric, the BJP scraped through in Gujarat and was pipped at the post by a resurgent Congress in the other two states. It is going to be impossible for BJP, therefore, to do an encore due to reasons that may vary from a combined Opposition, dip in rural economy due to farmers’ distress, rising graph of unemployment or reflexive anti-incumbency that is the hallmark of Indian democracy.

It is important for the BJP to concentrate on the east coast of India. The five states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal together provide 144 out of 543 Parliamentary seats and it is this stretch where BJP’s performance was abysmal even during the so-called wave election in 2014.

Among these states, Bengal provides BJP with the best chance to reverse its fortunes due to its unique demographic character and political climate. After decades of irrelevance except influence in pockets, the BJP is slowly taking on the role of principal Opposition. Its voter base is rising, and it has already relegated the state’s other two once-dominant players — CPM and the Congress — to the shade.

It still has a mountain to climb, as this columnist has written in a previous piece, but Saturday’s well-attended rallies held by the prime minister show that the party is getting traction, spreading its footprint and working to a plan.

It is fascinating to watch how the BJP is going about its job. It knows that in Mamata it has a powerful regional chieftain who has national ambitions, hence its approach so far has been controlled aggression — ratcheting up the public connect, taking on the chief minister, trying not to instigate ruling party despite provocation such as tearing of Modi’s posters — as well as a strategy to exploit the state’s demographic character. The last point was evident in Modi’s choice of attending the Matua Mahasammelan (congregation of Matua community members) on Saturday. Though ostensibly not a political meeting, BJP’s plan became evident when the prime minister visited the residence of Binipani Devi, the ailing nonagenarian matriarch of the community, ahead of the rally.

The Matuas are a group of religiously persecuted Hindus — a sect founded by Harichand Thakur, a social reformer from the 19th century in erstwhile undivided India that later became East Pakistan and eventually Bangladesh. Members of this community were forced to leave Bangladesh and settle in the Indo-Bangla border in towns such as Thakurnagar that lies around 80 kilometre from Kolkata. Their numbers swelled during Partition and they later spread to Howrah, the two 24-Parganas, Nadia, Malda, Cooch Behar, South and North Dinajpur. They constitute Bengal’s second largest Schedule Caste population.

This extremely well-organised community of refugees, who are estimated to be around 30 million in Bengal (2011 census puts it lower) are nevertheless an important constituency in Bengal electoral politics. For BJP, that is trying to gain a foothold in the state, they hold an added significance.

The 2003 Citizenship Amendment Act identifies Matuas who arrived after 1971 as "illegal infiltrators". They are yet to receive full citizenship and vote as D (doubtful) voters. Though deportation has stopped as the group became politically powerful, Matuas’ prime demand of full citizenship is yet to be met. This situation dovetails with BJP’s Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to give religiously persecuted Hindus from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan full citizenship.

It isn't difficult to understand now why Modi visited Binapani Devi (or Boro-ma) and his rally was so well attended that the venue couldn't contain the rally-goers resulting in a near-stampede like situation. Even during his short 14-minute speech, the prime minister picked up the topic and challenged the TMC government to extend support to the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, that may be taken up during the ongoing Budget Session.

"Due to communalism, people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh had to flee from their countries. People from various religions including Hindu, Jains, Parsi found no other place but India. It is for these people that we have got the citizenship bill. I appeal to TMC to support this bill and let it pass in the Parliament,” said the prime minister.

In Durgapur, Modi was less tactical and more aggressive. In fact, one struggles to remember when was the last time he launched such a scathing attack on the chief minister, whom he identified as the epitome of corruption and alleged that the state’s growth has been stunted due to ‘syndicate tax’ and 'Trinamool Tolabaazai Tax' — both slogans for extortion rackets allegedly run by TMC-backed goons.

He also made elaborate references to the budgetary provisions, especially to the PM Kisan Yojana that assures an annual income support of Rs 6000 to small and marginal farmers. Modi also spent considerable amount of time in criticising the Bengal chief minister for showing alleged signs of authoritarianism and intolerance towards democratic norms, disallowing rival parties to hold rallies or targeting rival cadres.

"Now I know why Didi is resorting to violence," said Modi with a flourish, "because she is scared of your love for me." There were references to Mahagathbandhan, since Mamata was the prime mover behind the 'United India' rally, and termed it as an opportunistic bandying of erstwhile rivals who until recently were threatening to put each other in jail.

Modi received thunderous response from the crowd, and Mamata's furious reaction later in the day indicated the arrows have hit home, but BJP’s problem is that it is still a one-man show. On the very day that the prime minister was addressing well-attended rallies, Rajnath Singh's public meeting in Falakata in north Bengal, where BJP is traditionally strong, drew poor response. It could be organizational lacuna or a comment on Singh, but it shows that that Modi, and Modi alone must do the heavy lifting in Bengal.