Apparently it seemed that the comrades were finishing the wall writing on the white-washed empty space. But no, they were collecting water from a municipal pipeline.
Text and Photos by Rathin Das*
As one enters Kolkata in election-bound West Bengal, smiling faces of Didi, Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee greets everyone, virtually from every nook and corner — from hoardings, bus stops, lamp posts, tea stalls and also the wall writings.
Emphasis is all of these is that “Bengal wants its own daughter (back)” . If one intends to jump to conclusion only on the basis of number of hoardings showing Didi’s faces, as compared to others, it would be clear that she is set to come back with a resounding majority.
But then, as past experiences have shown, all the hoardings and all the crowds at rallies do not always translate themselves into votes.
The other parties are contesting the assembly polls without any declared chief ministerial nominee and thus their posters are mostly ‘faceless’, except occasional glimpses of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
The BJP’s posters, very few in numbers, emphasise on ‘end of extortion’ and ‘end of sand theft’ (from riverbeds) and end of whatever are their allegations against the decade-old Trinamool Congress dispensation. .
The badly blamed and blemished CPI-M led Left Front, voted out in 2011 after 34 years of their uninterrupted rule, is seeking a mandate to ‘haal feraao, Laal feraao’ (change fate, bring back the Reds), as seen in the above photo.
Wall writing for the February 28 Left rally is already faded even as the next space ‘reserved’ for CPI-M still remains empty.
The popular television channels, seeking eyeballs and much maligned TRP hypes, too are engaged in their own kind of competition.
Some channels have promised election analyses, showing celebrities checking the latest poll news.
Amidst a debate about ‘outsiders’ in Bengal, the BJP is the only party which has put up hoardings in Hindi — but only in localities where there are substantial non-Bengali people…
…along with its posters in Bengali – “This time real change. This time BJP”.
Though there are election-related posters and hoardings all over, there are also islands of ‘apolitical’ spaces with plenty of photographs but not a single one of a political person or party.
*The writer is a senior journalist and an acclaimed photographer
