Kolkata: When a sitting chief minister contests an election, it’s bound to become high profile even if it’s just a bypoll. The bypoll in south Kolkata’s Bhabanipur on 30 September, which is being contested by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is no exception.
Trinamool Congress carried out a high voltage campaign in the assembly constituency, which is home to 2 lakh voters. Life size cutouts of Banerjee have come up in almost every lane and bylane of the assembly seat. It’s also hard to miss the Trinamool festoons hanging from buildings and electric poles.
This is striking because not only is the Trinamool in power in the state, but BJP, the principal opposition party, has fielded a comparatively new leader Priyanka Tibrewal. The party knows that the odds are stacked against it and its door-to-door campaign has also received a lacklustre response. Even flags and festoons of the BJP are few and far between.
But CM Banerjee is not taking any chances. Especially after Nandigram, where she lost to her former aide Suvendu Adhikari, who joined the BJP before the assembly election held earlier this year. Her loss in the assembly election necessitated this bypoll since under Indian law, a minister has to be elected to the assembly within six months of taking office to retain the post.
Since 21 September, Banerjee has addressed close to a dozen public and street corner meetings in Bhabanipur.
Every day, she addresses at least one meeting, sometimes two. Clad in a white cotton sari, wearing her trademark chappals, she comes to the meeting and greets people from different communities — Bengali, Muslims, Punjabi, Marwari and Gujarati — in their language. In Bengali and Bengali accented Hindi, she exhorts people to vote for her if they want her to continue as chief minister.
Banerjee’s campaigns are very lively — occasionally, she breaks into a Hindi film song or a Urdu couplet or recites poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul Islam, inviting loud applause from the crowd.
At times she also comes up with interesting catchphrases. During a rally near Shakespeare Sarani Saturday, she told the crowd that they should not lose their cool on voting day even if somebody tries to obstruct them. “Remember, you have to be cool. Cool Cool Trinamool,” she said and the crowd loved it.
ThePrint’s National Photo Editor Praveen Jain brings your pictures from CM Mamata Banerjee’s bypoll campaigns.
