Month in a wheelchair, will direct attacks on Modi work for Mamata?

Mamata Banerjee

The month-long wheelchair campaign of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been marked by a volley of direct attacks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a liar, Duryodhan, rioter, looter and even ugly, much unlike what her friend Arvind Kejriwal did to win Delhi just last year.

It was on March 10 that Banerjee sustained her foot injury in Nandigram and began her campaign in a wheelchair. Since, she escalated her attacks on the prime minister. On Friday, as she completed a month in the wheelchair, she even accused the Bharatiya Janata Party under Amit Shah and Modi of trying to kill her in the future, after injuring her.

But will this translate into an advantage for Banerjee in these elections?

History does not indicate so, with BJP believing even the wheelchair campaign has ‘restricted’ the chief minister rather than bring her sympathy.

Politicians like Kejriwal have learnt it the hard way that attacking Modi personally, or making it a showdown with the prime minister, is counter-productive.

The Delhi chief minister once infamously called the PM “a liar and psychopath” after demonetisation and made this a major issue in the Punjab assembly elections in 2017 which his party later lost. Kejriwal, however, avoided all attacks on the prime minister during last year’s assembly elections in Delhi and rather made his campaign all about the missing the BJP chief ministerial face and his development agenda.

In fact, the record shows that PM Modi encashes on such attacks on him, as he famously did during the 2019 general elections when Rahul Gandhi coined the slogan ‘Chowkidaar Chor Hai’ on the Rafale deal, but was answered with BJP’s mega campaign of “Mein Bhi Chowkidaar’.

In West Bengal too, with Banerjee calling Modi names and saying the state does not want to see his face, Modi has raised the issue in every public meeting. “Why is Didi abusing me? It is because her frustration of loss is showing,” Modi has been saying.

“Narendra Modi is a cult figure in popularity and by abusing him, you end up upsetting voters who voted for him in the Lok Sabha elections but may have voted for the opposition CM in the state elections if such attacks were not made,” a senior BJP leader told News18.

A Trinamool Congress leader argued that the chief minister had to respond given the “virulent campaign launched by the PM calling her Tolabaaz (corrupt) and the deeply problematic remark of Didi O Didi at rallies”.

Unlike Kejriwal, Banerjee has not stuck to simply questioning who the chief ministerial face in BJP was and has walked into the BJP’s trap by making it a direct fight between her and Modi, the BJP leader claimed.

Wheelchair campaign sympathy?

Banerjee has been on a wheelchair for a month now, holding rallies and roadshows in the same in an apparent attempt to get sympathy from voters, especially the women voters who have been her most loyal vote-base.

However, the BJP feels this has not brought TMC any dividends. “Her wheelchair campaign has in fact stolen her thunder and restricted her. Every politician has a particular style and Banerjee’s style was to pace on the stage or walk into any village or shop, pick a child or speak freely to people. The wheelchair campaign has ended up restricting her,” a top BJP leader said.

The chief minister has tried to compensate for the same by being more aggressive in her speeches and even kicking footballs into the crowd from the rally stages.

The jury is out on whether the woman voters would stick with Mamata given the various women-centric welfare schemes run by her and sympathise with her over the injury she claims was caused to her by the BJP.

“The women support this time is mixed. While some women voters could remain with Mamata, many are upset over political violence in the state and are attracted towards BJP. Our manifesto promises for women are also very big in scale,” a BJP leader said.

As towards her injury, BJP leaders Amit Shah and JP Nadda have been asking for her injury report be made public. “It is surprising that the injury has not healed even after a month,” a BJP leader remarked.

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