Shankar Ghosh has a tattoo of Che Guevara on his arm but makes a case for chanting Jai Shri Ram, ensconced in the company of BJP workers with tilak on their foreheads and saffron scarves around their necks.
On the other end of the arterial Hill Cart Road in Siliguri, his mentor turned adversary, CPM veteran and sitting local MLA Asok Bhattacharya eases into a chair on the ground floor of the four-storey party office on a sultry April afternoon last week, making phone calls to comrades to finalise his campaign plans for the evening.
Three-four youths in an adjacent room are hunched over computers while two middle-aged men wait in the corridor to accompany Bhattacharya on campaign trail.