Anita Katyal | BJP Helping Cong Or Dissing TMC? Saayoni’s Stock Rises In Bengal
Could an alert Opposition have preempted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s April 18 address to the nation in which he launched a frontal attack against the Congress for derailing the government’s attempts to fast track the implementation of the women’s reservation bill?
It is either a case of wishful thinking or a strategic ploy but Bharatiya Janata Party leaders campaigning in West Bengal, for what is termed as a do-or-die electoral battle, have spread the word that the Congress is doing well in the polls. Take, for instance, a conversation between senior leaders from the BJP, the Congress and the Trinamul Congress who ran into each other in the lobby of a Kolkata five-star hotel where they were all staying. While discussing the electoral prospects of their respective parties, the BJP leader said the Congress would notch up a good number of seats, declaring that it was winning in 16 constituencies. The Trinamul leader scoffed at this, saying the Congress was unlikely to get more than two seats. Since his party holds no seats in the outgoing Assembly and has negligible presence in the state, the Congress leader said he agreed with the Trinamul leader’s estimate. The BJP leader insisted he was right and went on to reel out the names of the16 constituencies which, he said, the Congress was winning. This suggests that the BJP is either helping the Congress in an effort to reduce Trinamul’s numbers or it is making such public declarations to send out a message that chief minister Mamata Banerjee is on a weak wicket.
Former Union minister Smriti Irani has been living in virtual oblivion after she was marginalised by the BJP leadership following her defeat in the last Lok Sabha election. Barely seen or heard over the last two years, Ms Irani struck lucky when the Modi government failed to muster the numbers for the passage of the three bills for the early implementation of the women’s reservation bill. Ms Irani suddenly found herself in the spotlight as she had served as women and child development minister. Television news channels were busy interviewing her while the BJP fielded Ms Irani at a special press conference a day after the Modi government lost the vote in Parliament. As she speaks fluent Bengali, Ms Irani was then dispatched to West Bengal for the BJP’s election campaign where she has been drawing huge crowds. While Ms Irani’s inclusion was a compulsion for the BJP, the party’s current favourites — Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta and Lok Sabha MP Kangana Ranaut — also figured in the list of campaigners. It appears that other women leaders in the party have fallen by the wayside.
The BJP was obviously depending on Kangana Ranaut’s star power when it decided to send the actor-turned-politician to campaign in the West Bengal elections but she pales in comparison to the popular actors and singers in the Trinamul Congress. From Moon Moon Sen, Deepankar Dey, Koushani Mukherjee to Mimi Chakraborty, Nusrat Jahan and Saayoni Ghosh, the Trinamul Congress has always had its fair share of film personalities. If Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan made waves in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, actor-singer Saayoni Ghosh is the new star now. She’s proved to be a huge hit on the campaign trail in the ongoing Assembly polls with her ability to establish an easy connect with the crowds. Her thundering speeches in Parliament, peppered with Urdu couplets, have already gone viral. Forget Kangana Ranaut, the feisty Trinamul Congress MP Mohua Moitra now has a serious rival in Saayoni Ghosh whose fluency in Hindi gives her an added advantage.
Could an alert Opposition have preempted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s April 18 address to the nation in which he launched a frontal attack against the Congress for derailing the government’s attempts to fast track the implementation of the women’s reservation bill? The jury is clearly out on this issue. Unhappy Congress leaders said the party could have acted swiftly and approached the Election Commission or even the Supreme Court during the day as the government had given sufficient notice about the Prime Minister’s address later that night. They said the Opposition should have known that the Prime Minister would use this opportunity to make a political speech, an obvious violation of the model code of conduct. The Congress, according to them, was negligent, pointing out that Rahul Gandhi and sister Priyanka were preoccupied with Robert Vadra’s birthday celebrations. It was only the next day that the Opposition got its act together and petitioned the Election Commission. A Congress leader has also approached the Supreme Court now while party MP K.C. Venugopal has submitted a privilege notice against Mr Modi for defaming the Opposition in his address. But it’s all in vain as the deed has already been done.
Here’s a further update on the churn in the Madhya Pradesh unit of the Congress. A large section in the local unit is up in arms against former chief minister Kamal Nath. Word has gone round that Kamal Nath is lobbying for the lone Rajya Sabha berth that the Congress can win in the coming elections to the Upper House. This has not gone down well with local leaders who want Kamal Nath to emulate his colleague Digvijaya Singh who has publicly declared that he is not a contender for a Rajya Sabha seat. Kamal Nath has further alienated the state unit by cosying up to the BJP.
