Target campaigning: Secret of Mamata's poll success

During one of her election rallies, as she campaigned in the northern district of Cooch Behar for next month’s rural polls, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee told the crowd that had gathered that she would never discriminate against them even though they didn’t really support her party in the past two important elections – the Parliamentary elections of 2019 and the Assembly elections of 2021. She told them that as the chief minister of the state she would always mete out equal treatment to all the people of her state, regardless of how they voted or whether they lived in the northern part of the state or the south. Cut to the campaigning that is taking place in the state’s southern districts and it is all about acknowledging the massive support that Trinamool received from the people in the same elections.

- DOLA MITRA

Though Banerjee has always negated the idea of making a distinction between “north” and “south”, pointing out that there is no division and that West Bengal, after all, is one state, when it comes to campaigning, she is keenly aware of the differences between the two parts. The problems are different.

The issues are different. The requirements are different. The expectations are different. “In the northern part of the state, there are groups of people who don’t feel that they belong to the mainstream of Bengal and want a separate state based on identity, like the Gorkhas of Darjeeling,” points out Tarun Ganguly, Bengal political expert. “There are also groups like the Koch and Rajbangshis, who feel that they have been neglected and are becoming minorities in their own indigenous land because of the problems of illegal infiltration of people from the neighboring country of Bangladesh.”