Pishi's choice

Since the Trinamool Congress has a record number of newcomers, many of them celebrities, fighting the Lok Sabha elections, party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has deputed a senior party leader as election manager for each contestant to help them sail through the electoral battle. Recently, after a meeting of all such leaders in Kolkata, an informal debate over who had been assigned the toughest task ended in near-unanimity among these election managers. The vote went to long-time loyalist of Banerjee and mayor of Kolkata Sovan Chatterjee. He has been deputed election manager of not a celebrity but the chief minister's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who is contesting from the Diamond Harbour constituency. "After all, under any circumstances pishi [aunt, in this case Mamata Banerjee] will not be ready to accept defeat for her favourite nephew," one party leader observed.