Kolkata: The week before the final phase of the Lok Sabha elections started off with turbulence in Bengal. While on one hand BJP worker, Priyanka Sharma was arrested by the Kolkata Police over sharing a meme of Mamata Banerjee on social media, on the other hand there was adverse violence in the midst of a road show addressed by the BJP president Amit Shah in North Kolkata, resulting to severe property damage.
With only three days left for Kolkata to vote, the voters are already facing a dilemma of choice. Having two leaders flaunting identical authoritarian image and playing the card of communal alienation, voters are perplexed to make a choice.
Both Mamata and Modi are radical authoritarians, you say anything against her, she accuse you of being a Maoist, and you raise any question against him, you are labelled anti-national,” said Avirup Sen, a financial analyst. He further stated that both Modi and Mamata are endorsing candidates with serious criminal backgrounds. “Almost every TMC candidate was seen on Narada sting operations, whereas BJP has proposed terror accused candidates,” he stated.
It’s been nine years since the TMC supremo, Mamata Banerjee, brought down the Left Front fortress. But the people are disheartened by the way Banerjee has been administering the state. Soon after she formed the government, a systematised operation of polarisation started off with the introduction of subsidies for the Imams and Maulanas.
“Mamata initiated the Muslim appeasement politics in West Bengal and the Hindus of West Bengal felt alienated thus creating a rift,” said Mukut Biswas, an advocate and political observer. “People voted out the Left for a change, but things in Bengal worsened and having BJP in the pipeline, things doesn’t seem to get any better,” he further added.
