Two leaders were out on the field on their missions on Wednesday, both playing to their strengths and had reasons to be happy with their performance at the end of the day. But the outcome of the face-off, albeit from a distance, between Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee can at best be described as a draw.

Modi was the first mover of the day. From a rally at Siliguri, the Prime Minister dealt the first blow, calling the chief minister the speedbreaker of Bengal before accusing her of coming in the way of the state’s development.

“Didi is acting as a speedbreaker to all our plans to help the poor people of Bengal,” Modi told a rally in Kawakhali at the south-western end of Siliguri. “I have managed to deliver development across the country in the last five years, but could not work at that pace in Bengal for a speedbreaker, known as Didi in Bengal.”

He started his speech around 1.40pm and spoke for over half an hour. Around 1.5 lakh people attended the rally where the BJP paraded candidates of three north Bengal constituencies — Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj.

Around 175km away in Dinhata, Cooch Behar, Mamata had the last word of the day. By the time Mamata picked up the cordless microphone around 4.15pm, Modi had reached the fag end of his address at his second rally of the day in Bengal at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Calcutta.

An estimated crowd of around two lakh were seen in and around the Brigade, which hosted its first covered rally on Wednesday.

On the Dinhata dais, Mamata checked her iPhone frequently and the sheaf of papers she carried made it clear she had come prepared to rebut the charges Modi had heaped on her.

“I will not name him… I will call him Expiry Babu as the Prime Minister has passed his expiry day,” she said to a round of applause at Sanhati Maidan, packed to capacity with over 80,000 people.

As the size of the venues varied, a comparison on the turnout is not possible. But the organisers of all the three meetings said they had met their target.

All the three rallies lived up to the expectations of their organisers. Sources in both camps — the BJP and Trinamul —admitted that meticulous planning had gone into the meetings as the two leaders wanted to make a mark with these rallies to launch their campaign for the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal.

Modi’s speeches showed the preparation for the meetings. Unlike the Siliguri rally, he was not as vitriolic on Mamata at the Brigade, which made some in the saffron camp sad.

“The Siliguri meeting was for the local audience and so he had to touch upon state-specific and local issues,” a source in the BJP camp explained. “The Calcutta meeting had a larger, national scope and so the speech was different.”

In Calcutta Modi dwelt on the Pulwama attack and its aftermath, a clear indication that the plan was to reiterate the narrative that he was all for a stronger India while the constituents of the evolving Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) of opposition parties were asking questions about the might of the armed forces.

The Prime Minister himself let on that he was expecting a larger national coverage of his Calcutta meeting at the beginning of his Siliguri address. “A lot of cameras from Delhi have travelled to Calcutta… I wish some of them had been here to see the crowd,” he said.

Mamata Banerjee addresses the rally in Dinhata. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Mamata too had crafted her message carefully. With the advantage of having the last word, she rebutted Modi’s charge that she had come in the way of schemes like the Ayushman Bharat Yojana for health insurance and the Pradhan Mantri Krishak Samman Nidhi Yojana for farmers.

“We have been contributing 40 per cent to Ayushman Bharat, but they were taking credit…. Why should we allow them? We have our own schemes to take care of farmers,” Mamata said.

Mamata answered Modi’s posers on whether she respected the armed forces. “I respect all the forces as they sacrifice their lives. I don’t need certificates from the expiry Prime Minister,” she said during her 55-minute speech.

Like Modi, Mamata too touched upon local issues that would have a bearing in some north Bengal seats like Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri.

“The BJP wants to implement the NRC (National Register of Citizens) here like they did in Assam,” she said. “They call themselves a party for the Hindus, then why were 22 lakh Bengali-speaking Hindus left out of the list in Assam?”

The BJP has often countered this narrative with a promise to pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to give citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries.

Mamata sought to drill holes into this argument. “Through the citizenship bill, they won’t give voting rights immediately…. One will have to wait for six years and, even after that, it would be uncertain,” she said.

Modi, likely to be in Cooch Behar on Sunday, is expected to answer these posers and toss fresh questions at Mamata.

Mamata, who will be in north Bengal over the next few days, will be at the same Cooch Behar venue the next day.

Their rosters make it clear the verbal duel will continue in north Bengal for another week before the venues shift to the state’s central part and then to the south.

“As the fight is between the BJP and Trinamul in Bengal, the war of words will continue till the last phase of campaigning is over on the evening of May 17…. The outcome of the duels will be known only on May 23 when the results will be out. Till then, the duels will end in a draw,” said a political observer.

Modi targeted the Congress manifesto also. “Those who have ruled India for 60 years are now saying they will remove the armour of the defence forces,” he said, alluding to the Congress’s promise to review the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Kashmir.

“The Congress, in its dhakosla patra (dodgy manifesto), full of lies, has promised to lift the law protecting our forces in areas affected by terror,” Modi told the Brigade rally.

He also said that by asking for proof of the Balakot attack, Opposition leaders had become heroes in Pakistan.

At the Brigade, he attacked Mamata and other regional party leaders for the United India rally of January 19 that drew nearly two dozen parties.

“Why,” Modi asked, referring to the Bengal chief minister’s “Modi hatao (remove)” slogan at that rally at the Brigade.

“Arrey bhai, kyun hatayen Modi ko? What crime has Modi committed?” he said, unleashing a rhetorical flurry of questions.

“Is it a crime to give homes to the poor? If it is, then he is guilty. Is it a crime to give toilets to everyone? If it is, then he is guilty. Is it a crime to ensure cooking gas for every household? If it is, he is guilty. Is it a crime to provide electricity in every home? If it is, he is guilty. Is it a crime to guarantee free health care to the poor? If it is, he is guilty…. If these are crimes, Modi stands guilty on all counts,” Modi said.

The Telegraph