Nandigram: A fractured leg didn’t stop Bengal’s wheelchair-bound Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from reaching Nandigram to hold a roadshow. Amidst fierce election campaign that the state is witnessing, Banerjee was injured earlier this month during a rally, in the high stake constituency, which votes in the second phase of state elections on Thursday.
On Monday, when the nation was busy celebrating Holi, Mamata led an eight-km roadshow in Nandigram, which was followed by a public meeting.
Accompanied by senior TMC leaders, she marched from Reyapara Khudiram More to Thakurchowk in her wheelchair. The Facebook post by Trinamool Congress showed ‘Didi’ being greeted by the general public with folded hands as her party worker marched behind her, carrying the party flag.
Hundreds of local people and party activists accompanying her were heard sloganeering “Mamata Banerjee Zindabad”. She will later address a rally.
Her intensified efforts to woo voters before campaigning for the second phase of the assembly poll ends in Nandigram on Tuesday evening could be well-read from her barbs on turncoat Suvendu Adhikari, who is contesting against her. Without mincing words, she referred to him as a ‘backstabber’ and ‘snake’. Declaring that she was contesting from Nandigram to fight the ‘anti Bengali forces
Taking a sharp strategic shift from TMC’s official narrative of blaming the Left Front for the Nandigram violence, she accused her former lieutenant, Suvendu and his father Sisir Adhikari for the loss of 14 lives during the police firing that took place and eventually led to the downfall of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government.
Sisir, a veteran leader, a former Union Minister and a sitting TMC MP, has followed his son’s footstep to join the saffron party.
Addressing a rally at Nandigram’s Birulia Bazar, Mamata alleged that the police and mercenaries dressed in police uniforms couldn’t have entered the village without the ‘tactic support’ of the father-son duo.
Understanding the high-voltage battle that lies ahead, BJP is also leaving no stones unturned to boost Suvendu’s campaigning. Home Minister Amit Shah is supposed to address a roadshow on Tuesday, where is likely to reply to the allegations leveled by Mamata against the Adhikaris.
Nandigram goes to polls on April 1 when the fate of Mamata, Suvendu along with CPI (M) State DYFI president Meenakshi Mukherjee who is banking on 30 percent Left votes from this zone which was traditionally with the Marxists hands between 1969 – 2009 will be decided.
