UPDATED: May 10, 2021 09:40 IST
Hattrick CM Mamata during the election campaign, at a rally in Jalpaiguri
IT was dusk on May 2 by the time news came that Mamata Banerjee had created history yet again. With a hat-trick of victories, and having secured more than 200 seats for the second time, her party, the All-India Trinamool Congress (TMC), had surpassed all expectations. The enduring image of this election will be of the wheelchair-bound Mamata, a wounded tigress who fought alone against the entire might of the BJP, including the prime minister. Anti-incumbency, allegations of corruption and minority appeasement, sexist tauntsMamata braved them all, and in the end her party was the only one left standing, winning 213 of the 292 seats (elections to two seats have been deferred). By bringing the relentless BJP juggernaut to a halt, her status in Bengal has been upgraded from Didi to that of a Durga. Mamata has exposed the claims of the Modi-Shah duo’s reputed invincibility as a me
Didi’s social welfare largesse, ‘lone warrior’ image among women and base among the poor and minorities saw the Trinamool Congress cut challenger BJP to size.
ISSUE DATE: April 19, 2021
UPDATED: April 9, 2021 23:19 IST
Illustration by Siddhant Jumde
After a stellar show in the 2019 general election, winning 18 of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the BJP emerged as the principal challenger to CM Mamata Banerjee’s TMC in West Bengal. In the run-up to the assembly election, which got under way on March 27 and enters its fourth phase on April 10, Union home minister Amit Shah had said, “Unishe half, ekushe Saaf (halved in 2019, eradicated in 2021)” about the TMC’s diminishing influence.
The BJP has been trying to stoke and fan Hindu nationalist sentiment and has to that end, and to counter Mamata’s brand of regional sub-nationalism, variously invoked Bengali icons like Vivekananda, Aurobindo, ‘Netaji’ Subhas Chandra Bose and Syama Prasad Mookerjee, among others.
PM s Brigade rally on Sunday enthuses saffron brigade
Kolkata, Mar 11 (UNI) The crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi s rally at historical Brigade Parade ground on Sunday last must have warmed the cockles of the BJP s heart as its strength matched that of public rallies held by former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, or even the incumbent, Mamata Banerjee.
BJP’s national general secretary and central observer of Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya said, “This gathering proves BJP is coming to power and Didi is going out of power.
This is unprecedented for a state that has for long steered clear of the ideology that forms the core of the saffron front.
West Bengal Assembly elections 2021: Mamata faces anti-incumbency, resurgent BJP looks to make big gains
From a fervent push to roll out the Citizenship Amendment Act to relentless attacks on the ruling TMC government over its alleged minority appeasement and political violence the BJP seems to have put in place a meticulously planned election strategy months in advance. Updated: February 26, 2021 5:52:52 pm
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. (File)
“Those who aren’t being able to fight us democratically, they have opted for the route to killing BJP karyakartas to fulfill their desires. This dance of death can’t go on in a democracy…Read the writing on the wall.” The tacit remarks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a victory speech following the NDA win in Bihar left no room for suspense that it was directed at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the importance BJP was attaching to th