THE LAST LEG

Mamata plays the lone, injured warrior against the full might of the BJP as West Bengal enters a do-or-die electoral contest

- Romita Datta

THE GAME IS ON, AND HOW. As Bengal inched towards the first phase of an assembly election that has implications not just for the state but for the entire country, all stakeholders brought out their heavy artillery.

In an indication of how big the Bengal prize is, the Bharatiya Janata Party had all its big guns descend upon the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the party’s star campaigner, slated to address more than 25 rallies over the poll period. Union home minister Amit Shah set up camp in the state, closely monitoring all aspects of the election, from candidate selection to booth management to holding more than 50 rallies. Other luminaries, such as Yogi Adityanath, crisscrossed the state, calling out Ramdrohis (those opposing the ‘Jai Shree Ram’ chant), while Union defence minister Rajnath Singh had everyone guessing on their chief ministerial candidate by dropping broad hints such as asking BJP workers to step out and hit a boundary like Sourav Ganguly.

“They are carpet-bombing the state. Bengal is a prestigious battle for Amit Shah and he is throwing all his weight behind it,” says a state vice-president, requesting anonymity. This perhaps explains why Shah, in an effort to put a lid on the rebellion brewing in the state unit over the distribution of tickets to TMC turncoats such as Biswajit Kundu, Arindam Bhattacharjee and Rabindranath Bhattacharjee, decided to stay back for another night in Kolkata. He was up till the wee hours to address grievances and control damage. On March 16, all state leaders were called to Delhi and given a dressing-down for allowing internal dissensions to come out in the open.