Kolkata: Ten years after Trinamool Congress (TMC) was voted to power, marking the end of a 34-year Left Front regime in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is back to the ‘roots’ of her victorious campaign.
It was the twin villages of Nandigram and Singur, where she had led a sustained campaign against the Left Front government, which later turned bloody.
She led a movement against the Left for forcibly taking away farmland from the villagers to set up industry, specifically Tata Motors’ Nano manufacturing unit in the area. Mamata became the cynosure as hundreds of villagers joined the movement and forced the government to relent.
And now, as TMC faces the stiffest challenge from the BJP to retain power, Mamata has decided to contest from Nandigram, leaving her home constituency Bhowanipore.
On Tuesday, a day before she filed her nomination, Mamata was at the village chanting mantras for the welfare of people. She informed that she’ll start her campaign in the constituency on Shiv Chaturdashi (March 11) to bring her good luck.
To prove herself as a ‘daughter of the soil’, the Trinamool chief said she has taken a 2-room flat on rent in the area so that she can come and stay there whenever she wants. She added that she will make a ‘kureghor’ (thatched-roof accommodation) for herself in the village, so that she can visit every three months.
“I have taken a 2-room accommodation here on rent for a year and will also make a village house for my extended stay here,” she said at the rally in Nandigram.
Recalling how womenfolk of the area had stood behind her in 2011, Mamata made a promise as a gesture of gratitude. “I will make a flyover connecting Haldia to Nandigram for better development of the area,” she said.
Mamata hit out at former trusted aide and minister in her cabinet Suvendu Adhikari for his remark that the chief minister is a “guest” in Nandigram. “I am an outsider for some for whom those coming from Gujarat are insiders. Those calling me an outsider in Nandigram are outsiders themselves,” she thundered.
“I can never forget Nandigram. I decided to contest the election from Nandigram due to the people’s response. Bhulte pari sobar naam, bhulbo nako Nandigram (I can forget everyone’s name but not of Nandigram),” she rhymed.
She promised to make Nandigram “a model of development”, leading her opponents to ask why she didn’t think of it all these years for the place which helped her unseat the Left Front.
She asked the electorate to play an ‘April Fool’ prank on the BJP, as Nandigram goes to polls on April 1.
She even played the Hindu card. “I’m a Hindu. Don’t challenge me. I know the mantras and do not have to learn them anew like others.”
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