The Hindu : National / Elections 2004 : Vitriol and adrenaline as Didi does her rounds

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Wednesday, May 05, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Vitriol and adrenaline as Didi does her rounds

Mamata Banerjee campaning in South Kolkata.- Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

MARCUS DAM

Kolkata

The firebrand Nationalist Trinamool Congress leader is nursing a sore throat; she's taking homeopathic medicine to relieve the symptoms. Not really surprising, considering that she's been campaigning 8-12 hours a day for nearly three weeks. "The elections are now barely a week away and I have still another five constituencies to visit." Mamata Banerjee pauses. "I have hardly any time for my Kolkata South Lok Sabha constituency, I have to canvass for all the party candidates," she says almost apologetically to the crowd at an election rally in Garia in the city suburbs.

It has been nearly two hours and the crowd has been waiting in anticipation for didi as she is commonly known. Ms. Banerjee has finally arrived. She wipes the perspiration off her face with one end of her pale blue and white sari. It is 6.50 p.m. and clammy; evening has descended on a city still simmering in the mid-summer heat. The stormy petrel of West Bengal politics is addressing the second of her seven public meetings scheduled for the evening. She is not expected home before midnight.

The Trinamool leader left her two-bedroomed tile-roofed house on Harish Chatterjee Road, a labyrinthine lane meandering through Kalighat in south Kolkata, about an hour ago for yet another evening of campaigning. "Ma, I am off", Ms. Banerjee tells her mother, leaning against the doorway, as she steps into a green Maruti 800 to take her seat by the driver's side. She will be making a brief foray into the adjoining Kolkata North East constituency in the Beliaghata area, where awaiting her is a milling crowd of slogan-shouting supporters chanting her name, describing her as "the fiery daughter of West Bengal." The chants reach a crescendo as she gets off the Maruti and threads her way toward the podium set up on a balding patch of what once was a park in Sarkar Bazar.

But that was some time ago. She has done some 20 km by now, and the crowd falls silent as Ms. Banerjee arrives. Some in the audience have been waiting since well before sundown. After the usual "apologies for having kept you waiting" — a common refrain at almost all her meetings in the evening — she launches into her speech. Her clenched fist punches the humid evening air as she lambasts the CPI (M) for its "goondaism" and "false promises".

"I have achieved more for the people by being an MP for the past 13 years than the CPI (M) has by staying in power in the State for 27," she thunders. "I challenge the Left Front. When it comes to development I have never compromised ... The CPI (M) joins hands with the Congress at the Centre and considers the same party its foe in the State. This is double standards of the highest order..."

The crowd applauds in response. Ms. Banerjee glances at her watch. The vitriol flows as does the adrenaline. "They [the Left parties] have to depend on the rifle butt and bayonet for votes. I, in contrast, on your blessings and love."

"The CPI (M) has shut down factories, one after another. All it has opened is a factory of [party] cadres ... the State Government has levied taxes on almost every conceivable item, from rural taxes to that on cooking cylinders." Dwelling on the same subject at her earlier meeting at Beliaghata, in one of her more combative moods she had something more to say. "Young couples who might be in love, beware. There could be a tax awaiting you too..." Ripples of laughter had greeted the words.

The evening wears on. There have been two more public meetings in between, at Jadavpur and in the Kasba area. The discourse has, by now, become somewhat predictable. It is 9.45 p.m. and Ms. Banerjee's convoy of three white ambassadors and a jeep carrying rifle-toting commandos has reached her next port of call, by the side of Cornfield Road in Ballygunge. A tram trundles past as she mounts the dais yet again. Chants of "Bande Mataram and Mamata Zindabad" pierce the air. Didi is in a hurry to start. She clears her throat. Another glance at her watch, a mop of the brow, and the tirade resumes. "Imagine the audacity of the party [the CPI (M)]," her voice booms." Their goons have had the temerity to plant their party flags atop my house in Kalighat. I have had them brought down but they will pay for this," she threatens.

There is a sudden change in inflexion, as she reverts to what she has been saying all evening, an analogy repeated in her speeches. "It is time for the child's annaprasan [an auspicious occasion for Bengalis when the child is offered its first mouthful of rice]. The date is May 10. It is customary that the family inviting guests for the occasion prints the child's name and that of the head of the family on the invitation card. They [the Opposition] have yet to come up with either — a name for the child and for the head of the family. We have decided on ours: the name is the National Democratic Alliance and the head of the family is Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji." The audience cheers. Ms. Banerjee makes her way down the podium to her waiting car. She has one more meeting to address in Bhowanipore before returning home.

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