The chill had settled on the Tekhali grounds of Nandigram and a smart gathering was waiting since morning to hear from the person whom they had literally catapulted to the hustings in 2011.
They were waiting with bated breath after the exit of their son of the soil from the party they had always seen akin to his name.
The exit of Suvendu Adhikari from Trinamool Congress and switching sides to the BJP had created a void of sorts for the grassroots workers of the TMC and all eyes were on that dais of Nandigram, wherefrom Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was to address them.
And the Trinamool supremo surely did not disappoint them. In fact, she succeeded in lifting the chill that had settled on Nandigram for the Trinamool Congress and transformed the crowd into an ecstatic lot with one sudden, sweeping and captivating decision – to contest the upcoming polls from the Nandigram Assembly seat.
The first reaction from the Tekhali field to the tea stalls and club rooms in Kolkata, where Mamata’s maiden speech at Nandigram after the exit of Suvendu was closely followed, was that of stunning silence. Followed by a massive roar of jubilation. It was as if, by that one announcement, Mamata had dealt her masterstroke and had decimated the Adhikars even before the real contest began.
But, political watchers in Kolkata are not that elated. Scepticism was the rule of the day for them because by sundown, Suvendu had thrown his challenge of his one-time mentor – to defeat Mamata in Nandigram by at least 50,000 votes or quit politics.
No doubt the contest will be a keen one with Mamata saying she is open to contesting from two seats parallelly, one from her present Bhawanipore seat in South Kolkata and now Nandigram in Purba Medinipur.
“I cannot spend much time here (Nandigram) during the polls as I have to contest from all 294 seats. Bhawanipore is my elder sister and Nandigram will be my middle sister. You the people of Nandigram will have to look after everything during the polls. But, I will promise you one thing. Once the polls are over, I will deliver everything. You can have my word,” Mamata told the huge gathering amid loud cheers.
She knows if she gets confined to Nandigram in her effort to take on the fight to the backyard of the Adhikaris, she runs the huge risk of losing support or seats in other corners of the state, especially across south Bengal where BJP is yet to make many inroads. Mamata also knows she has to secure the sizeable Muslim minority votes from Nandigram in her favour to pull out a victory from the seat.
If she finds herself pitted against her one-time lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari, the contest for Nandigram will no doubt be the most high-voltage one of this election. But, Mamata is no greenhorn in this electoral game. She had played it successfully back in 1984.
As a non-entity in the political spectrum of Bengal, she was pitted against the formidable Somnath Chatterjee from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, then considered as a Red citadel. Riding on a massive sympathy wave in favour of Congress as the elections were held in the backdrop of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Mamata dealt out a shocking defeat to Chatterjee and became the youngest Lok Sabha MP at the age of 29. That December defeat was the only time that Chatterjee had lost an election between 1971 and 2009 (Somnath Chatterjee had won 10 Lok Sabha polls) and Mamata was firmly etched on the political vocabulary of Bengal.
If BJP eventually decides to field Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram, wherefrom he had won the last elections in 2016 by a handsome margin and becomes successful in confining Mamata to Nandigram more than she would have spent during normal circumstances, they can surely transform that absence into a couple of seats. But, there is a big ‘If’ in this conjecture – that of Mamata playing into the hands of the BJP.
By announcing her intentions to contest from Nandigram, Mamata has surely formed some knots in the stomach of Prashant Kishore, who, party insiders say had no inkling as to the TMC supremo’s decision. But, since the cat is out of the bag, PK will surely counsel his client wisely. At least, that is why he and his team are there for the Trinamool this election.
Now, has the Nandigram surprise pulled up by Mamata Banerjee lent much credence to Suvendu Adhikari? Will Mamata’s decision to contest from Nandigram, not provide Suvendu the much-needed breather and make the contest too personal? What happens to her larger fight against the BJP across the state? Will the feisty woman of Bengal in her trademark white and blue Hawaii chappals walk into her political Waterloo? The answers are barely a couple of months away.
Also Read: Mamata's political gambit aimed at Suvendu Adhikari
