 "Mamata Banerjee")
Election campaigning ended nearly a day earlier than scheduled for the last phase of polling in West Bengal on Thursday evening, with Tuesday’s destruction of the bust of 19th century Indian renaissance icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar dominating the political discourse.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which over the past several months had kept its political plank focused on stoking a stronger sense of Hindu identity among the electorate of the state to counter the Trinamool Congress’ plank of Bengali identity, felt compelled to neutralise the Mamata Banerjee-led party’s allegations that it was BJP’s supporters behind the destruction of the statue.
