BALLOT FEVER

A tussle is on between Mamata Banerjee and the BJP. Voters know that this is not about Covid-19, but about the 2021 assembly polls

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

TAKING A CLOSE LOOK The Central team in Kolkata

In March, Mamata Banerjee took the Covid-19 fight to the streets, distributing masks and drawing circles on the road to enforce physical distancing. But, for the past one month the West Bengal chief minister has been spending more time inside her Nabanna office in the red zone district of Howrah. Notices from the Union home ministry have been piling up on her desk. She is probably the chief minister whose political acumen has been tested the most during the pandemic and, in her case, the results have changed from positive to negative in two months.

And, Banerjee is miffed. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s conference with chief ministers on May 11, she accused Home Minister Amit Shah of being the brain behind the “politics” over the pandemic. “When something happens in Gujarat or an ordinance is declared to snatch away the rights of labourers in Uttar Pradesh, why don’t you question them? Why are you targeting Bengal and its people by sending notices?” she asked.

Shah has been firing notices through home secretary A.K. Bhalla. The first set of letters criticised the state government for violating lockdown norms. Banerjee had been visiting hospitals, quarantine centres, stadiums and markets, sometimes sporting a mask, sometimes not. Her visits to pacify people won her praise even from her detractors.