With only three rounds of polling left in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to have dropped the towel and surrendered. Citing the coronavirus pandemic as the reason, TMC supremo Mamata on Sunday whilst speaking to a local news channel remarked that she will not be conducting public election rallies.
“I won’t hold big campaign rallies in Kolkata, except one on the last day of campaigning i.e. on April 26,” said Banerjee.
Mamata, however, said her party workers would hold small street-corner meetings. “On my part, I will bring down the duration of my rallies from 60 minutes to 30 minutes,” added the TMC supremo.
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Mamata has understood that she is waging a lost battle against the BJP wave which is all set to sweep TMC out of the state. After going all out in her political rallies by allegedly faking an injury, to accusing the central deployed forces of rigging the elections to resorting to violence, Mamata tried all the tricks in the book to fashion a comeback in the state. However, sensing that the support was still not building in her favour, the TMC leader took the decision of calling it quits.
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As reported by TFI, Mamata’s announcement comes fresh at the heels of Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s decision to not conduct political rallies in West Bengal.
“In view of the Covid situation, I am suspending all my public rallies in West Bengal. I would advise all political leaders to think deeply about the consequences of holding large public rallies under the current circumstances,” Gandhi said on Twitter.
2-0=2
— Atul Kumar Mishra (@TheAtulMishra) April 18, 2021
It is a universal fact acknowledged by all that Congress is a hopeless case in West Bengal. Thus, the fact that Gandhi canvasses for the votes or not doesn’t really make a huge impact. If Rahul was indeed virtuous, he would have cancelled political rallies in the South where he had camped for his party. The moral grandstanding by Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi comes at a time when the Election Commission has itself taken various steps to ensure that the spread of Coronavirus during the next three phases of polling is inhibited.
In its order which came into effect last Friday, the EC said that no rallies, public meetings, street plays, nukkad sabhas, shall be allowed on any day during the days of the campaign between 7 pm and 10 am. Further, the EC also extended the silence period to 72 hours for each of the remaining phases.
