Ask even as sparrow at Bhawanipore — Bengal’s own Raebareli or Banaras — and it will tweet: “All is well. Didi is winning once again by a huge margin.” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is known as Didi in Bengal.
The voters here are so heavily inundated in “gratitude” for their Agnikanya that hardly any household can even think in its wildest dream to vote for others. Take for instance Heera Patel of Harish Mukherjee Road: “We used to vote for the left Front earlier but there was no development. Today the roads are clean, the parks are green, there is no power-cut.”
Annapurna Banerjee at Hazra Road says: “There can be no substitute to Mamata Banerjee. Tell me who will rule after her. Good or bad Mamata is our neighbourhood child and she must win. My whole family will vote for her.”
Ramesh Parida of Kashari Para says “there is no mai kaa laal (brave son of a mother) who can defeat Mamata. let alone Boudi who is a rank outsider.”
Boudi is equivalent to elder brother’s wife in Bengali. Here Boudi stands for Deepa Dasmunshi the left-backed Congress candidate and wife of ailing Congress leader Deepa Dasmunshi.
The style of campaigning of these two leaders is a tad different. Though Banerjee rose up in politics being a next-door-neighbour and kept almost house-to-house contact often frying fish for the house she visited. Notwithstanding, years of being in power public relations has been left on the party organisers most of whom have metamorphosed into builders.”
Dasmunshi a former MP from Raiganj has gone back to the basics reaching house-to-house. “This is my style of functioning. This is nothing new. I have always been like that because if you do not know your constituency well then how can you understand their problem and work for them. Election time is the best time to make one-to-one contact,” says Dasmunshi.
Has she covered the gap between her and the Chief MinisterIJ One of her election managers says, “we are getting huge response. Many people cannot say it on face for an unknown fear but they are willing to vote for us.”
His claim is not completely unfounded. The Trinamool had trailed to BJP by a few hundred votes at Bhawanipore in 2014 general elections.
BJP has put up Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grand nephew Chandra Bose from this seat. And everything depends on how well he performs, says critic BN Mukherjee adding “more Bose vote for Bose means depleted chance for Dasmunshi.”
“We were her ardent followers but what has that family given to us” asks one of Banerjee’s neighbour at Harish Chatterjee Street. “Her brothers have usurped our garages and their henchmen literally dominate everything in the area,” the man says requesting anonymity.
A furlong away at Kalighat Temple area the locals say: “Bengalis are emotional but you cannot make someone an emotional fool for all times to come. This time Didi has a good chance of losing. How long can you take bluffs. It is so insulting to be befooled by someone who is perhaps less educated than you,” says a local businessman.
“Bengal has suffered in education, agriculture, industry, culture and not the least law and order situation. Today we are at the top of ladder in terms of atrocities towards women and unemployment. The people of Bhownipore will teach her a lesson this time round,” says a professor.
Notwithstanding says a former MlA “it is not what the people think that matters but it is about how voting is conducted on the polling day. If the polling is done peacefully then it could be anybody’s game.”