Even as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections are a little over a month away, the fight for 110 Municipalities has begun with a war over posters of BJP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in the city.
Posters of former Mayor of KMC Sovan Chatterjee have been seen which have a BJP symbol. The posters read, “Come back again as the Mayor and fulfil your responsibilities while you also complete pending work.” BJP party leaders however say that the posters were not put up by the party, but has possibly been done by a well-wisher of Sovan.
Meanwhile, posters of current Mayor Firhad Hakkim who also holds the post of Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister have been put up as an answer to Sovan’s posters congratulating Hakkim on the good development work done in the city. When asked about Sovan’s posters, Hakkim tried to brush off the question saying that the KMC has done good work and that people are with him.
Hakkim has been known for people friendly initiatives like ‘Talk-To-Mayor’ which have helped people reach out to the Mayor and solved issues too.
Sovan on the other hand who was Mayor for 8 years while he was in the TMC but did not appear to be as approachable by citizens. He switched to BJP in 2019, after things went downward in the TMC owing to issues in his personal life, which West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC party supremo Mamata Banerjee was reportedly upset with.
Sovan who also held Ministerial portfolios of Housing and Fire And Emergency Services in Mamata’s cabinet had to step down from these posts apart from that of the Mayor.
Sovan and his close friend Baishakhi then joined BJP. According to sources, Sovan was miffed when the BJP held a welcome programme for him at the State BJP headquarters but did not include Baishakhi. Both Sovan and Baishakhi have kept away from active party work and thereafter have on several occasions been seen with TMC party leaders. Education Minister Partha Chatterjee has said that Sovan can come back to the TMC if he wishes to. However, according to sources, TMC will not make Sovan the Mayoral candidate if he chooses to go back to his former party.
The announcement for the civic polls are slated to be made in March and elections to take place in April this year. These are seen as a semi-final to the 2021 Assembly elections, where TMC is trying to hold on to it’s turf for a third term while BJP hopes to gains more inroads in the State. The saffron party’s success in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections saw the BJP bag 18 of 42 seats, which was an increase from 2 seats.
The TMC meanwhile went down from 34 to 22 Lok Sabha seats, which gave the BJP the confidence of unsettling the TMC from their turf in the 2021 Assembly elections. The Municipal elections will give both parties a sense of where they stand and what to expect as the fight for power is set to get more intense.
