KOLKATA: As Mamata Banerjee takes to the Bhowanipore bypoll battleground, she will rely on four cabinet ministers and a three-time councillor, who also happens to be one of the younger founding members of Trinamool Congress, as her primary foot soldiers.
While cabinet ministers Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas, Subrata Mukherjee and Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay have been tasked to look after multiple wards, she has chosen Baishwanar Chattopadhyay as her election agent, who considers the responsibility the biggest accolade in his two-decade-plus political career.
“It’s a great honour to be chosen as election agent of our party supremo and state’s chief minister. This is perhaps the biggest compliment in my career and I would try my level best to do justice to the faith our chief minister has resposed in me,” said Chattopadhyay, an accomplished lawyer who has been a three-time councillor from ward 90, a former borough chairperson, a member of city mayor’s core team and a former vice-chairman in the state transport corporation.
Banerjee announced the names during her first campaign for the bypoll while attending a party workers’ meeting at Ahindra Mancha in Chetla on Wednesday. “I initially wanted someone senior like Bobby (Hakim), Bakshida (Subrata Bakshi) or Sobhanda. But as per updated rules, an MP or MLA cannot be an election agent. So I am choosing Baishya as my election agent,” the CM had said from the dais as Baishwanar stood up with folded hands in acknowledgement.
On Thursday, Banerjee also distributed ward-wise responsibilities among key leaders in her party. She asked transport minister Hakim to look after wards 74, 82 and 77 along with MP Kalyan Banerjee and power minister Aroop Biswas. Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee was allotted ward 63. Wards 70, 71, 72 and 73 are to be looked after by local leader Bablu Singh under the guidance of veteran Bakshi, agriculture minister Sobhandeb , industry minister Partha Chatterjee, MP Mala Roy, Rajya Sabha MP Subhasis Chakraborty and MLA Madan Mitra.
Asking Mitra to ensure proper campaigning in his own neighbourhood of Sankharipara and the other areas of core Bhowanipore, Banerjee mentioned him as a colourful “chhele”. “Madan is a colourful boy. But at times he gets more colourful and that is when it creates problems,” she said at the meeting while Mitra, sporting golden-frame spectacles and a white T-shirt, blushed on the dais.
From Thursday, all of them were at work, meeting party workers and finalising door-to-door campaigns and street-corner meetings.
“Bhowanipore is a conglomeration of different classes, tastes and ethnicities. But what unites them is the love for Mamata Banerjee and that is what had helped me win the election four months ago. We will all campaign again, maintaining Covid protocols, to ensure she emerges victorious with an even bigger margin,” said Sobhandeb, who had resigned from the seat to make way for Banerjee to contest.
The person most excited with the new-found role was election agent Baishwanar. “An election agent is perhaps the next important person in the constituency after the candidate as he has to maintain liason with the Election Commission and ensure counting and polling agents are working properly. I will try my best to give my best,” he said.
