Warcry is over for Nandigram battle, voters to decide luck

Nandigram, Mar 30: The campaign for the second phase election in West Bengal came to an end on Tuesday with warcry of both parties to let the voters to decide whom to vote. The political hotspot Nandigram has hogged the national media as it’s being considered as a prestige battle between two-time Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her friend-turned-foe Suvendu Adhikari. The BJP's election in-charge for Nandigram, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said his party is all set for a landslide victory in Nandigram as voters have already made up their mind to replace the corrupt TMC government with a "government of double engine" for development. The election here has become highly polarised on the Hindu-Muslim issue. Nandigram has a total of around 275,000 voters out of which 200,000 are Hindu. Mamata’s three-day camping in Nandigram ignoring 29 other constituencies voting on April 1 will definitely benefit the BJP as Mamata, the poster girl of the TMC failed to campaign in many constituencies. Perhaps she is aware of the challenge at hand here or the BJP has strategically made her to camp to cast saffron shadow in the remaining 29 seats. A senior BJP leader from Odisha camping in West Bengal said, “She got caught in our trap due to her ego and we are sweeping over 20 seats along with Nandigram out of the 30 seats going to poll in the second phase”. Another noticing part of Nandigram campaign is poster fight. Here Suvendu Adhikari is BJP’s main face on his poster unlikely in other constituencies. The message is clear that the BJP is hurting Didi’s ego by posing her former disciple at her stature. It seems to be the strategy of the saffron party to lower the stature of Didi before the voters, said a local political analyst. Adhikari will win or not there does not bother voters of other 29 constituencies going to polls on April 1, but the BJP is definitely going to bloom lotus in several constituencies with the RSS workers spreading the Jai Sri Ram chant. And, definitely, the second phase exit poll intelligence report will impact rest six phase elections in the state.