Mamata woos voters with talk show

Yesterday afternoon, a Bengali television channel had a surprise for its viewers. Instead of the scheduled daily soap, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was seen having an 'informal chat' with celebrities like Tollywood actors Dev, Shravanti, film director Raj Chakrabarty, footballer Rahim Nabi and poet Joy Goswami.

Surely, this is a ploy to reach out to the voters just days before Panchayat poll in the state as the celebrities, who were shown showering praise on Mamata Banerjee government, have wide acceptance among the rural population.This was only first of a four-part "advertorial series" and subsequent parts are to be  telecast over the next two weeks when the five-phase election process will be in full swing.

This first-of-its-kind strategy of TMC to counter what Banerjee terms as "falsehood spread by the media" is  perhaps an indication, how much effort it is putting on bringing "Parivartan" in local district bodies, most of which were still run by the Left.

Also,it is not only the friend-turned-foe Bengali media, once whose contribution to bring her to power in 2011 Banerjee had openly acknowledged; she is fighting against many other odds as well.

Whether people of Singur, who are yet to get back their land, still have the indomitable faith in Didi; whether people in jangalmahal are satisfied with new government's development promises in the region; or whether millions who lost their savings to Saradha hold the ruling party responsible for the scam — many such questions are to be answered in rural election, for which, in the first phase polling will be held in Bankura, West Midnapur and Purulia districts tomorrow.

For CPI(M)-led Left Front, this election is about regaining the lost ground with former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattarcharjee making a comeback as the lead campaigner. In 2008 rural polls, which perhaps showed first sign of crack in Left citadel in Bengal, Left had bagged 13 of the 17 zila (district) parishads while the Trinamool and Congress had two each under their belt.

Not even the biggest supporter of Left is hoping to regain so many zila parishads as former chief minister is being heard repeatedly saying, it hopes the Panchayat poll to show the first sign of revival.

But if the number of gram Panchayat seats which went uncontested is any indicator for organisational strength of both the rivals, Left has an uphill task ahead.

Of the total 58,865 seats going to polls, 6,274 have been won uncontested and about 70 per cent of this uncontested seats were won by the ruling TMC.

In fact, during the long-fought legal battle with West Bengal government State Election Commission repeatedly referred to this data to prove its point that security personnel as necessary to conduct the poll.

Leader of Opposition Suryakanta Mishra says, "The SC order on five phase election and deployment of central forces to some extent ensure a fair poll. TMC wanted to take control of entire poll process."