Roti, razors and kirtans: How Bengal candidates are taking campaigns into everyday lives

With polling scheduled in two phases on April 23 and April 29, and counting on May 4, the coming weeks could see even more inventive acts of public outreach.

• West Bengal candidates weave campaigns into daily life
• TMC and BJP candidates visit kitchens, salons, kirtan events
• Campaigns focus on relatable gestures over traditional rallies

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From kitchens in Hooghly to roadside barber stalls in Birbhum and kirtan gatherings in Jhargram, candidates in the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly election are recasting campaigning as immersive, everyday theatre.

Instead of relying solely on rallies and speeches, aspirants across party lines are embedding themselves in the daily rhythms of voters—rolling rotis with homemakers, shaving customers at local salons, or joining devotional singing sessions.

In Hooghly’s Pursurah, Trinamool Congress nominee Partha Hazari was recently seen inside a voter’s kitchen, rolling out rotis on a traditional clay oven after learning that the household had run out of cooking gas.

As party workers raised slogans outside, Hazari handled the rolling pin with ease, turning the impromptu moment into a subtle political message.

“I have made rotis before, so I know a bit of the craft. Many families are struggling because gas cylinders are not available. I only tried to lend a helping hand,” he told PTI.

Meanwhile, the BJP candidate in Birbhum chose the edge of a barber’s blade.

In Dubrajpur, sitting MLA Anup Saha paused mid-campaign after spotting a roadside barber at work. Moments later, he was seated beside the stall, razor in hand, shaving a man’s beard — a carefully staged gesture to reinforce his claim of remaining “one among the people”.

Saha had wrested Dubrajpur in the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, one of the few constituencies where the BJP managed to gain ground in the political backyard of Trinamool strongman Anubrata Mondal.

This time, the razor-sharp optics appear aimed at reminding voters that, despite being an MLA, he remains rooted in everyday life.

Further south, in the forested belt of Jhargram, the BJP’s Gopiballavpur candidate Rajesh Mahato struck a different chord — one of faith.

Launching his campaign with a Hari naam sankirtan in the Patashimul region, Mahato joined villagers in devotional chants and played with gulal during the gathering before shifting to door-to-door canvassing.

On the other hand, on the occasion of Eid, Trinamool candidate Naresh Chandra Bauri joined a local celebration, taking part in the traditional handi phod game. Blindfolded, he attempted to break a suspended pot with a stick.

Though he missed the target, Bauri turned the moment into a political quip, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party would meet a similar fate in the upcoming election.

Even the Left, once the most ideologically austere force in the state’s politics, appears to be adapting to this new grammar of public engagement.

In Panihati, CPI(M)’s young candidate Kaltan Dasgupta began his campaign with prayers at the Mahotsavtala ghat temple dedicated to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu — a sight that would have been almost unthinkable during the decades-long rule of the Left Front, when communists projected a more rigidly secular political identity.west