Assembly elections: Mamata to be portrayed as daughter of Bengal

TMC doubles down on its strategy to fight the polls with the chief minister spearheading the daughter-versus-bohiragwto (outsider) theme

Mamata Banerjee: File picture

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, Arkamoy Datta Majumdar   |   TT   |   Calcutta   |   21.02.21  :  Didi will be portrayed as the daughter of Bengal taking on intruders, replacing the mother motif that had so far driven the election campaign of the Trinamul Congress.

“Bangla nijer meyekei chay (Bengal wants its own daughter and nobody else),” will be the campaign slogan for Trinamul in the upcoming Assembly elections, with the ruling party doubling down on its strategy to fight the elections with Mamata Banerjee spearheading the daughter-versus-bohiragwto (outsider) theme.

The party suggested that much more than local survival issues — captured in the earlier slogan “Ma, Mati, Manush” — are at stake this time.

“This election is about protecting the Constitution of the country and as the whole country looks at Bengal, it will be the daughter of Bengal who will lead the fight to protect the state and its culture,” Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said at an event where the slogan was launched.

Chatterjee said the leadership had gauged a similar sentiment among the masses across the state.

Besides the obvious thrust on addressing women, the new slogan ties in with the schemes and projects Mamata had launched with their focus on the girl child and girl student.

In effect, Didi will be seeking votes from Bengal households as a daughter — to which the BJP currently lacks a matching answer. The slogan will help underscore another message: Didi is the sole and unequivocal chief minister candidate in the state, with no other party having yet declared a nominee.

Besides Chatterjee, Trinamul’s all-India general secretary Subrata Bakshi, senior minister Subrata Mukherjee, Rajya Sabha chief whip Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, party leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien and Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar attended the event.

The saffron ecosystem, which is betting big on the polarisation card, has so far appeared unsure of the impact of the outsider charge, amplified by some gaffes associated with visiting BJP leaders.

The Trinamul Congress campaign slogan

“Every person in Bengal trusts her daughter. Under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, Bengal’s culture has been protected. She won’t allow the misogynistic ‘Bargi’ onslaught on the culture of Bengal,” Ghosh Dastidar said.

“Bargi” is a term Trinamul has been using for the battery of politicians from other states being parachuted into Bengal by the BJP. The Bargi were a sub-category of the Maratha empire’s troops who carried out plundering expeditions across Bengal’s western swathes almost annually through the 1740s.

Minister Mukherjee said he was proud to belong to a party with Mamata as its leader and stressed that theirs was the only party where the chief minister candidature was a foregone conclusion.  “Our main objective is to go to the polls with no uncertainty over who our face is and spread the word on the unprecedented development that Bengal has seen since 2011 when Mamata came to power,” Mukherjee said.

The Trinamul slogan was conceptualised and executed by poll consultant Prashant Kishor and his team.

Pishi Jao: BJP

Within hours of Trinamul launching its slogan, the BJP came up with a song called Pishi Jao (Go, Aunt), sung to the tune of the Italian protest folk song Bella Ciao.

The song was launched by the BJP’s IT cell chief and co-observer for Bengal, Amit Malviya. Bella Ciao was sung by the mondina (paddy) workers of north Italy in the 19th century to protest against the the harsh working conditions in the fields.

Left parody

A parody song video of the Left attacking both Trinamul and the BJP captured the imagination of many social media users.

The Left’s parody of the song Tumpa — a pop culture favourite among vast sections of Bengal’s youths — was widely circulated within hours of its launch.

The parody, written and performed by Left supporters Rahul Paul and Nilabja Niyogi, has been composed as a promotional for the Left’s Brigade Parade Grounds rally of February 28. The event is being planned as a show of strength, and the target headcount is 10 lakh.

“For a long time now, the Left has been accused — rather correctly — of being snobbish when it comes to the contemporary culture of the masses while claiming to be their voice. It’s time that changed and this is a step in the right direction. Politically mature youths must come forward to weave more of such elements into the Left’s voice in 2021,” a city-based political scientist said.

“It does not matter if the content is no longer classical or intellectual enough for Alimuddin Street. Packaging the correct politics in a way that resonates with the masses of today, especially the youths, matters,” he added.

“It was a pleasant surprise to see (CPM state secretary) Surjya Kanta Mishra, perceived to have an intellectual rigidity about him, share it on social media.”