Suvendu changes address, plays ‘son of the soil’ card

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari changed his voter address from Haldia to Nandigram to project himself as a “bhumiputra” (son of the soil) pitted against chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who left her home turf Bhowanipore to contest from Nandigram. Suvendu showed his new voter card before filing nomination papers on Friday.
Throwing a challenge at Banerjee, Suvendu said: “My relationship with them (people of Nandigram) is very old. Mamata Banerjee remembers them every five years during the election. People will defeat her this time. I am challenging Mamata Banerjee as a voter of Nandigram by filing my nomination today.” He then entered the district magistrate’s office to file his papers.

But this was not all. Strumming the chords of localism, Suvendu craftily blended it with the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan to send out signals of Hindu assertion even at the cost of losing the minorities he had worked with when he was in Trinamool. “Du tarikher por amar barite eshe mishti kheye jaben (Come to my home and have sweets after May 2),” the BJP leader said, putting up a confident face in the mega battle with Bengal’s no. 1 politician, Mamata Banerjee. Union ministers Smriti Irani and Dharmendra Pradhan accompanied him to the DM’s office to throw their weight behind Suvendu.


Suvendu began the day by offering prayers at Janakinath temple and Ram-Sita temple and later paid tribute to the Nandigram martyrs’ column before setting out on a roadshow that ended at the DM’s office amid loud chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’. “We will fight the elections on the development plank. That is my offering at the temple,” he said, flashing his voter ID card where the address has changed from Mahaprabhurchak in Haldia to Nanadanayakbar in Nandigram.

Irani spoke on similar lines at Kshudiram More, on the way to the DM’s office. Challenging the Trinamool slogan (Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chay), the Union minister said: “Which daughter does Bengal want? The one who unleashes violence on an 80-year-old woman? The one who didn’t allow Durga idol immersion? The one who didn’t allow Saraswati Puja?”

Irani also countered Trinamool’s battle cry, Khela Hobe, saying “Didi is creating chaos in the state, playing with the lives of women and children”. She accused the CM of throwing the spanner in a host of central schemes such as Ayushman Bharat and PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, alleging Banerjee had deprived people. “Mamata Didi, do as you like, but only (PM Narendra) Modi will bring ashol poribortan (real change) in Bengal,” Irani said.

Also on Friday, CPM candidate for Nandigram, Minakshi Mukherjee, accompanied by her supporters, filed nomination at the DM’s office in an attempt to break the Mamata-Suvendu binary.

PM Narendra Modi will hold three public rallies ahead of the first round of Bengal polls beginning March 27. According to BJP, Modi is scheduled to address a rally at Purulia on March 18, in Kanthi on March 20 and in Bankura on March 21.