Mamata Banerjee’s TMC goes to rule West Bengal for the subsequent 5 years regardless of the Nandigram election end result she could or could not win. But her occasion has been capable of repeat the efficiency of the 2016 Assembly elections when it had received a stellar 211 of the 293 seats. Current traits counsel the TMC is more likely to achieve comparable numbers.
The TMC and the BJP campaigned feverishly, with the BJP bringing its nationwide leaders, together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whereas the Banerjee campaigned in a wheelchair. Here’s a glance at what labored for Banerjee regardless of the huge blitzkrieg marketing campaign by the BJP concentrating on her 10 years of rule since 2011.
A fighter
Her determination to contest from Nandigram confirmed her combating spirit, an perspective thought of a should for a frontrunner, regardless of the truth that the BJP performed its bait on Suvendu Adhikari, as soon as a Mamata confidant and now a BJP chief, who’s often known as a neighborhood Nandigram hero.
She took a danger, which it appears, turned her most interesting marketing campaign level.
An underdog like Indira Gandhi
Banerjee performed an underdog as Indira Gandhi did in the 1971 election when she defeated a united opposition or like Narendra Modi when he defeated a complete opposition in 2014. She efficiently exploited the opposition concentrating on her the identical method each Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi did.
Banerjee, certain to a wheelchair, and being attacked by the opposition leaders solely labored for her benefit.
The lone CM face
The undeniable fact that the opposition didn’t have a chief ministerial face solely compounded her enchantment, prefer it helped Modi nationally, particularly after the en masse defection of TMC leaders to the BJP together with TMC’s second-in-command Adhikari.
People had no different chief to search for earlier than a towering character who constructed her political profession on the Singur and Nandigram land acquisition protests
A polarisation battle balanced
She tried to steadiness her enchantment to each Hindu and Muslim electorates with the rise of the BJP in West Bengal. If she earlier supported Muslims with schemes, giving month-to-month allowances to imams and muezzins, and assist to Muslim spiritual buildings, the BJP’s rise pressured her to assist varied Hindu festivals like Durga Puja. She additionally prolonged a serving to hand to Hindu monks as effectively.
Since 2012, imams and muezzins get month-to-month allowances. Imams get Rs 2500 a month, whereas Rs 1,000 is given to muezzins who give the aazaan (name to prayer). In a balancing act, Mamata Banerjee, in September final 12 months, introduced a month-to-month allowance of Rs 1,000 for Brahmin monks and eight,000 free homes. The initiative known as “Jai Bangla” additionally covers monks of different communities like Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis, together with Tribals, the present finances says.
Welfare schemes
Banerjee introduced mass welfare schemes, a lot on the strains of Tamil Nadu, concentrating on girls and poor folks like Maa Canteens that present meals to the poor for Rs 5, or the Kanyashree Scheme since 2013 that offers monetary help to poor women. The scheme helps women between the age of 13 to 19 by way of money transfers for his or her training and empowerment and has seen 67,96,966 beneficiaries to date.
The Rupashree Scheme, underneath which women get Rs 25,000 for his or her marriage, has seen 8,49,138 beneficiaries. Monthly pension in the state has been made uniform at Rs 1,000 for all the present schemes and the initiative has coated 23,16,058 beneficiaries to date.
The outsider vs insider battle
Banerjee was additionally to garner a share of Left Front-Congress voters who had supported the BJP again in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, because it displays in the present traits, by calling BJP leaders, who got here to marketing campaign in the state, ‘outsiders’.
The TMC is at the moment main at 214 seats whereas BJP has been restricted to 75 seats.
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