What Worked For Amma And Didi!

A contrast in method and style, Mamata and Jayalalitha have few peers in understanding mass electoral psychology

- Satish Padmanashan, Dola Mitra In Calcutta and Ajay Sukumaran In Chennai

At a street-corner meeting in Behala Chaurasta in downtown Calcutta, under an under-construction flyover, a tV crew from Delhi is on the stage with Mamata Banerjee, negotiating for an interview slot. the enthusiastic crowd of 2,000 is getting restive. Suddenly, Mamata dashes to the lectern, clutching her sari, and scolds the gathering: “Can’t you see I am talking to the media from Delhi? Can’t you wait quietly for a few minutes?” A wave of laughter ripples through the quietening crowd. Mamata has this easy, warm connect with people—not the leader and the led, but as one of them, their diminutive Didi, who both listens to and scowls at them.

An enormous Jayalalitha rally in Vill­upuram, off Chennai, presents a different scene. A dozen gigantic cutouts of Amma keep stern watch over two lakh people; rousing music rises on a crescendo; crystal­ clear LED screens dot the large arena. Amma is a distant figure, yet when she starts speaking, the crowd swoons, women wipe off tears of elation, men pump their hands and bow, as if to a deity come alive.

WHAT WORKED FOR DIDI

Voters do not mind dealing with a one-woman party with hardly any internal debate

Bengal’s GDP growth rate, marginally higher under Mamata than under the Left, bucked national decceleration

The Sarada scam and the Narada sting thrown at Mamata through the media rebounded on opposition

Big industry avoided West Bengal but giving away bicycles and cheap rice worked in cultivating a vote-bank of the underclass

Memories of Left misrule still fresh in voters’ minds after five years for alliance with Congress to bear impact

Rough elements of the ‘syndicate’ may be out on the streets, but Left ‘goondaism’ cannot be wished away either