oppn parties Mamata Banerjee Keeps Her Word, Will Contest Only From Nandigram

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Mamata Banerjee Keeps Her Word, Will Contest Only From Nandigram

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-03-06 03:39:09

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

That Mamata Banerjee is supremely confident of victory, both for self and her party, is evident in the way she has given up her 'safe' seat Bhawanipore in Kolkata to contest the ensuing elections from Nandigram only, a seat considered to be the stronghold of Suvendhu Adhikari, her one-time confidante who defected to the BJP. With this, Mamata has also kept her word - she had announced some weeks ago that she would contest from Nandigram.

Any other leader would not have taken such a huge risk and would have contested from two seats. But Mamata Banerjee has always been different. She loves to be challenged and also loves to throw challenges at her opponents. With this decision, she has sent out a strong message to the defectors that she is going to confront them in their dens. She has also sent a message to the BJP that she is not going to be cowed down by its poaching tactics. The opposition has not decided yet whether it will field Adhikari from the seat.

The biggest advantage of Mamata contesting from Nandigram for the TMC will be that if the BJP decides to field Adhikari against her, he will be pinned to the seat in order to give her a fight and not able to campaign across the state in real earnest. Such is Mamata’s stature that she will not be required to spend much time there as she has appointed state minister Purnendu Basu as her poll manager and the party machinery will take care of the rest.

Nandigram will be the most keenly watched contest in these elections if BJP fields Suvendhu Adhikari from there. Adhikari claims that Nandigram is his fiefdom and has also claimed that he will defeat Mamata by more than 50000 votes in a direct contest. Mamata has taken him on as she wants to prove that Adhikari is what he is because of her and the party and even in Midnapore district (where Nandigram is situated), it is the party that allows people like Adhikari to come up and not the other way round. 

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