The Lake Town-VIP Road bus stop, among the handful of air-conditioned bus stands that have come up in Kolkata, offers passengers momentary relief from the sweltering heat. The bus stop looks modern, barring the facade, which has been covered completely in masking tape.
Regulars, of course, know what lies beneath—the smiling faces of West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee and the party’s local legislator.
Bengal is in the midst of a six-phase election and on 14 March, ahead of the first phase on 4 April, the Election Commission ordered the state government to remove all hoardings, banners and other material publicizing its achievements.
Across the city, which goes into its final phase of polling on Monday, scores of bus stops that have come up in the last five years now have tape, brown paper, even tarpaulin running along their length. Be it bus stands in Salt Lake, on VIP Road, off the EM Bypass, towards Garia and Jadavpur. Some of the stops look grey and grim, others have managed to retain some colour.
It’s all a metaphor, perhaps, for development and achievement, warts and all—even signifying, possibly, the emergence of a personality cult. For the TMC government, mired in controversies, had not shied away from appropriating the city’s spruced-up public spaces. Posters of TMC leaders would stare at you from every direction; road medians and railings wore the party’s favourite colours—blue and white.
The tape and tarpaulin will come off next month, once the assembly election results are declared on 19 May. By then, it’ll be clear how much there is to show.
