Forced to bat second although she had fixed her itinerary first, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday conducted a road show along the same 1.8-km Bidhan Sarani route
on which Narendra Modi’s culture caravan had rolled a day earlier.

For the chief minister — unlike in the case of the Prime Minister — it wasn’t a familiarisation trip and with the advantage of comprehension of the complex Bengal ethos, she brought to it several qualitative differences in her usual style.

Walking instead of being driven down, as was the case with Modi, the two-century-old north-south axial thoroughfare known for being a hub of most things Bengali, Mamata was in her element.

Between paying floral tributes to two of the greatest south Asian icons from north Calcutta — the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose statue at the Shyambazar five-point crossing and the Swami Vivekananda statue at his Simla Street residence — she made the event interactive, participative and celebratory.

Narendra Modi at the road show along Bidhan Sarani on Tuesday evening. Bishwarup Dutta

Through the 50-odd minutes she took to complete the road show, she exuded the confidence of knowing that all nine seats in Saturday’s final phase (including Kolkata Uttar for which the road shows were conducted) were as good as won.

The Telegraph, which was witness to both shows on two consecutive days, takes a closer look at some of the key elements of Mamata’s rally that made it different from that of Modi’s.

Interactivity

Mamata, unlike Modi, did not confine herself to waving at or greeting people with folded hands and a smile from atop a heavily guarded vehicle, from a distance. As she walked, she stopped countless times to oblige people in the crowd yearning for a touch or a word. She shook hands with people, spoke to them, patted the heads of youngsters and picked up children to give them chocolates and her blessings.

Every once in a while, she even accepted modest, handmade gifts by way of paintings — of her or icons from the Renaissance and the freedom struggle. A qualitative difference that deserves to be underscored was how interactive and participative she made the exercise; going on to shake a leg — to loud cheers from the gathering — at the very end with folk dancers performing across the road from Vivekananda’s residence.

At the end, by the 19th-century radical philosopher-monk’s statue, Mamata was seen talking at length to the monks who had gathered to greet her, the way they had for Modi on Tuesday.

Unlike Modi, at the beginning of the road show, she delivered a brief address. Besides thanking the people for their overwhelming support, she tore into the Prime Minister for his “desperate attempts” to establish a non-existent Bengal connect and to misappropriate Bengali icons such as Bose — fiercely opposed to the saffron camp’s ideology — with the hope of electoral gains.

Organicity

As Mamata put it proudly, her road show unlike Modi’s did not need mobilisation from other districts or even states to ensure there were enough people in the crowd. “From Howrah and Hooghly to Jharkhand and Bihar, they had to bring in people from all over the place. We did not have to try so hard. People of north Calcutta, of Shyambazar, are enough for our salute to Netaji,” she said to thunderous applause from thousands.

While estimates suggest that Modi’s road show had a headcount of close to 50,000 along the same route, multiple sources in the saffron camp have admitted in private to having mobilised around half of them from various other places. Busloads of people were brought from the districts and the buses were parked near the Kolkata station, said a source. In Mamata’s road show, the crowd count according to unofficial estimates was between 30,000 and 40,000, but it was an organic turnout.

While chants in the name of Modi, Bharat Mata, and the saffron war cry of Jai Shri Ram had filled the air on Tuesday, it was all about Didi, Joy Bangla and Jai Hind on Wednesday. “The people today (Wednesday) weren’t made to show up, weren’t physically transported from elsewhere.… Common people showed up spontaneously,” said Trinamool’s Kolkata Uttar candidate Sudip Bandyopadhyay, in whose support Mamata walked on Wednesday.

“Mamata Banerjee’s acceptability was already sky-high, yet it seems to be increasing exponentially this time,” he added.

Pluralism

Mamata walked with hundreds in tow, including dozens of senior leaders and elected representatives, such as industry minister and Shyampukur MLA Shashi Panja, Calcutta’s mayor and urban development minister Firhad Hakim, deputy mayor Atin Ghosh, Chowringhee MLA Nayna Bandyopadhyay, Entally MLA Swarnakamal Saha, Beleghata MLA Paresh Paul and leaders Kunal Ghosh and Santanu Sen.

The obvious intent of displaying a collective leadership — instead of the BJP’s “one-man show” she despises — was palpable.

On Tuesday, Modi’s spot atop the vehicle ensured a position of preeminence to him and none of the other leaders present — BJP state unit chief Sukanta Majumdar, leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, Kolkata Uttar candidate Tapas Roy and Dum Dum candidate Silbhadra Datta — drew any attention. Curiously, of the four who accompanied Modi, only Majumdar isn’t a Trinamool turncoat.

Theme

A visibly vast percentage of women who formed the crowd on either side of Bidhan Sarani and in her entourage was in keeping with what was the apparent core theme of the march (also of her general election campaign overall) — women empowerment.

One out of every two Bengal electors is a woman and Mamata has been unwavering in her focus in recent years on them through women-centric schemes ranging from Kanyashree to Lakshmir Bhandar and it seems to have served her well since the Assembly polls of 2021.

The Modi road show theme was “Bangalir Hridoye Modi (Modi in the hearts of Bengalis)”; a desperate bid by the saffron camp to shed the “outsider” tag given by Mamata.

“He was trying too hard… it was fun to watch. But it was reassuring to see her visit. She is one of us,” said Ruma Biswas, a 48-year-old homemaker from Maniktala.

“Didi has been trying to do a lot for women, she genuinely makes an effort,” added Biswas, who witnessed both road shows from the Beadon Street intersection of Bidhan Sarani, standing by the walls of the historic Bethune College.