It’s a fight between Didi and Modi in Bengal

Local candidates do not matter. Votes are being sought for the CM and the PM.

 

Kolkata: As candidates take a back seat, the only question that voters from Bengal are grappling with this election season is whether it will be Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) or Narendra Modi from the Bharatiya Janata Party.

A group of youth in their late 20s sitting at a tea stall in Duttapukur at the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency, were seen discussing whether Mamata Banerjee or Narendra Modi should be voted to power.

Loknath Mondal, one of the youths from the group, said, “It will either be Didi (Mamata Banerjee) or Modi and no other person is being factored in for this election.”

He added that in the Lok Sabha polls people see politics from the national perspective, therefore, local candidates are just faces of these two leaders.

His friend Trilok resonated the same feeling. Speaking to this correspondent, he said, “Yes, this election is an election between these two leaders. The voters here are not even considering the candidates, they are going to vote for either Mamata Banerjee or Narendra Modi.”

Asked how candidates are not important even when the Barrackpore constituency has two strong leaders, Arjun Singh from the BJP and Dinesh Trivedi from the TMC, Trilok said, “These are very strong leaders from this area. Arjun Singh has his own clout and Dinesh Trivedi is considered as a humble and noble person, but people are not taking these things into consideration. The face of the BJP is Modi and of the TMC, it is Mamata Banerjee and this is what is being discussed and talked about among the young.”

The Mamata versus Modi debate is visible across the state. This correspondent travelled across several constituencies in the state and noticed that the election banners, posters and slogans put up in the state are all designed in way that they talk about these two leaders. Even in the election rallies of the BJP, the sloganeering is either for Modi or for the party, the speeches being delivered at election rallies also talk about what the “Modi Sarkar” or the “Mamata Sarkar” has done, the candidates are hardly taken into account.

The karyakartas engaged in campaigning are also seeking votes in the names of these two leaders. For the BJP, they are promoting the “good” work that Modi has done at the Centre and for the TMC, the workers are promoting how Mamata Banerjee has done “phenomenal” work for the rural and poor people of Bengal.

For example, in the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat, every individual that this correspondent spoke to said that BJP means Modi and TMC is Mamata Banerjee.

Rima Dey, a resident of Bongaon, told this correspondent, “Who knows Shantanu Thakur (BJP) or for that matter even Mamata Bala Thakur (TMC). She (Mamata Bala Thakur) was the MP for the last five years and she hardly came to this area. The campaigning is also being done here in the name of Modi or Mamata Banerjee. People are wearing Modi masks, Modi caps, and pamphlets are being given to us that talk of Modi; so naturally, people are only seeing Modi for BJP. Nobody even says vote for Mamata Bala or Shantanu Thakur; they say vote for ‘Maa Mati Manush’ or Modiji.”

Experts and political observers have also said that this election has become an election of survival and existence of both these parties and, hence, both BJP and TMC are leaving no stones unturned to ensure their victories.

A political science professor from Bengal, who has been keenly observing elections for years, said, “This election has become about Narendra Modi or Mamata Banerjee because for both the BJP and the TMC, it is a battle for their existence in the state. If Mamata Banerjee loses a substantial number of seats to the BJP, it will be the beginning of the fall of the TMC and Mamata Banerjee and for the BJP, which has made deep inroads into Bengal, will start to move back to their shelters as the goondas of the TMC will hound them. Therefore, it has become a prestige battle for both the parties.”