Kalyan Banerjee
KALYAN BANERJEE SHED his elitist image and hit the bumpy roads of rural Bengal to make sure that the BJP did not cross 100 seats. The accomplished lawyer, who had fought many important cases for Mamata Banerjee in the past four decades, says her pro-people policies made the Trinamool’s impressive victory possible. Excerpts from an interview:
Q/ In 2019, the BJP did very well in Bankura, Purulia and West Burdwan.
A/ That was primarily because our organisation had collapsed then. But the situation changed during Covid. When everyone was inside their houses last year, I went from house to house and made contact with people. Where was the BJP then? Nowhere.
Q/ The BJP was supposed to sweep Hooghly.
A/ Yes. Here also the same story. With the exception of four seats in Armbagh parliamentary constituency, they could not make any mark. We could have saved Arambagh as well, but that was primarily our mistake. But I would not go public about it.
Q/ The Trinamool had lost the highest number of leaders to the BJP in Howrah, including former minister Rajib Banerjee. But it did not win even a single seat there.
A/ That was our biggest success. They were betrayers. We managed to sell the pro-poor policies of Mamata di. People saw that we were with them. Even Rajib was defeated.
Q/ What went against the BJP?
A/ Three things. Didi’s pro-people policies for rural people. Second, leaders like me went door to door and convinced people about our policies. And third, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah wanted to tarnish the secular fabric of Bengal, which people did not like.
Q/ If you went door to door, so did Shah and J.P. Nadda. They ate at tribal houses.
A/ I am in charge of Bankura and some other districts since 1998. We need to have lunch or dinner at village houses. That is what our daily routine has been. But we never called photographers or cameramen to click pictures. Also, we always walked in the procession and workers got charged up. When you travel on a vehicle and wave hands, people assemble, but they are not moved. The same happened with Shah and Nadda.
Q/ What clicked for the Trinamool?
A/ Modi’s Covid mishandling last year and our pro-people policies. Free health card to everyone, which had never happened earlier. In 2019, our organisation fell flat and SC/ ST votes went to the BJP. They came back to us this time.
Q/ But political polarisation happened in 2019.
A/ Yes, that is what we made people aware of. The BJP’s problem is that it does not know Bengal’s history. It did not know that Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote a thousand songs on goddess Kali and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa read Quran in Dakshineswar Kali temple in Kolkata. Had they known this, they would not have tried to break the secular fabric of Bengal.