Kolkata: The 2019 general elections may be a fight for the BJP to secure a second straight term in office at the Centre, in West Bengal, it is a "semi-final match" for the saffron party before it takes on a redoubtable opponent in Mamata Banerjee in the assembly polls in 2021. Ironically, despite being the land of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bhartiya Jana Sangh, the BJP's forerunner, the party was never reckoned as a potent political force in the state till the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when it clinched 17 per cent votes and two seats.

The BJP, which edged past the Congress and the Left Front in the panchayat elections last year, hopes to ride the anti-incumbency factor and alleged "appeasement politics" of the West Bengal chief minister to position itself firmly as the main opposition party. Factionalism in the once formidable CPI(M)-led Left Front, which Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) ousted from power after 34 years in 2011, and the Congress, has helped the BJP emerge as an aggressive opposition force in the state. According to BJP leaders, the party currently has 40 lakh members in West Bengal.