Elections are times for questions. The biggest question cannot and will not be answered till May 19, 2016, when the votes are counted. But a number of smaller questions, answers to which offer interesting clues, can be answered. I have decided to compile some of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in political circles in West Bengal into this article. So here is my list of five FAQs in Election-Season Bengal.
1. Is there an alliance between the Congress and the CPI(M)?The question is straightforward. Is there an alliance or is there not? The CPI(M) General Secretary denies there is an "alliance". While we ordinary people reach for our dictionaries, a senior CPI(M) politburo member from Kerala denies there is an alliance in Bengal and reminds us that the two parties are fighting each other in Kerala. Are they? Some media reports suggest that the Pradesh Congress President and the CPI(M) General-Secretary will soon share a stage in Bengal. Wah!
Meanwhile Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi turns up at public meetings practically organised for him by the Communists, with their cadre as audience, and shares the stage with CPI(M) MPs. In Parliament in the recent Budget session, Congress-CPI(M) coordination and election planning did not even pretend to be a secret. I guess the parties and their leaders are embarrassed by their alliance (or should one say "dalliance"? "relationship"?). Tells you something, doesn't it?
2. So what is Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's view of the Communists, the CPI(M) and the Left Front? What does he really, really feel about their politics?The Boy Wonder says one thing in Kerala and another in West Bengal, and flits back and forth between calling the Communist ideology "obsolete" and extolling the CPI(M)'s world-view, between telling Keralite voters to defeat the CPI(M) and asking Bengali voters to support the Congress-backed CPI(M) candidates.
I guess the last word must lie with the stand-up comic Papa CJ. His
YouTube video lays bare the Congress Vice-President's confusion, hypocrisy and two-facedness.
When I Iast checked the video, it had attracted 2 lakh views on Facebook. Its popularity should tell the Congress and its Boy Wonder something. Papa CJ's political critique is the most biting of them all.
3. Why is the BJP President, Amit Shah, not addressing campaign rallies in Bengal? Usually he's everywhere in an election. Why's he running away from Bengal? Ah, there's an interesting backstory here. It began in 2014, when the BJP won around 17 per cent of the vote in the Lok Sabha election. Suddenly the (then new) party president was excited. He thought power was within grasp.
Since the BJP lacked a Bengali face, he decided he would be the face, and the national president came down to address even assembly by-election campaign meetings and para (neighbourhood) gatherings. It got nowhere. Better sense prevailed. Not willing to carry the can of a humiliating defeat, the BJP party president retreated.
He can take heart from one thing though. The Congress will win fewer seats than it did in 2011 and the BJP more. That's not much of a prediction, since the BJP won zero in the 2011 assembly elections!
4. What does Mamata Banerjee's election schedule look like?Many Chief Ministers visit constituencies and far-flung regions of their state only once in five years. This is not the case with Mamata Banerjee. In her little car - perhaps the smallest vehicle permanently used by a head of government in India - she has travelled the length and breadth of Bengal in the past five years (including taking the full government machinery for 105 administrative meetings held in the districts) and her campaign visits in the past two months are a renewal of contact.
She is addressing about 152 campaign meetings this time, touching every single constituency (some neighbouring constituencies are covered in a joint meeting). Our Trinamool Congress candidates stand steadfast with her, on the same stage, and are given pride of place at these meetings, as should be the case.
Typically, five days in a week are spent outside Kolkata and require a night's rest in a district town. It is only if the last meeting of the day is reasonable driving distance from Kolkata that she comes back to the city. Of course the two nights she spends in Kolkata are virtually sleepless as she has to catch up with files that are part of her Chief Ministerial duties.
Mamata Banerjee's public meetings, both party workers and independent journalists tell me, are attracting large and enthusiastic crowds. What is noticeable is that a sizeable proportion of her listeners is made up of young people and of women. In many meetings, as many as 70 per cent of those gathered are women. Bengal's first woman Chief Minister has built a strong base among women voters.
Mamata Banerjee's simple sari, campaign style and mannerisms are the same since 1984, when she defeated Somnath Chatterjee from Jadavpur in the Lok Sabha election. What has changed this year is the Trinamool symbol badge she wears on her sari and which also appears on the mike in front of her. It's to reinforce the election symbol that voters must press the button for.
5. Does Trinamool have other star campaigners?Mamata Banerjee is our biggest campaigner by far. This is not surprising. She is the most popular politician in West Bengal, a well-regarded Chief Minister and our party leader. Some elections are centred on personalities and this one, in Bengal in 2016, captures Mamata Banerjee at her peak. This explains why she is visiting every corner of the state and addressing so many meetings.
Abhishek Banerjee, president of the Trinamool Youth Wing and MP from Diamond Harbour, is addressing 100 public meetings. I asked him the other day what he'd learnt from his aunt's illustrious political career. "Her fighting spirit," he said, "her ability to bounce back after being reduced to a single Lok Sabha seat in 2004." Like the Chief Minister, Abhishek is trilingual. He speaks English, Bengali and Hindi. I suspect his Hindi is better than Mamata Banerjee's, since he went to Delhi for his management degree and spent some years in the city.
Our other MPs, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, have been assigned specific tasks or clusters of assembly constituencies to look after. I must make special mention of my colleague Suvendu Adhikari, elected in 2014 as the MP from Tamluk. This time he is contesting an assembly election as well as campaigning extensively across the state.
P.S.: Still got some FAQs to answer. More next week!
Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.