Asim Dasgupta campaigning in Khardah on Saturday. One voter said he had never seen the finance minister campaign ‘this hard’

What does an MLA of five times do when he faces a tough competition from a challenger who brings to the table almost similar skill sets and poses a credible threat of taking away his chair?

The incumbent iterates his strengths, talks about his achievements, intensifies campaigning and even apologises for mistakes made in the past even as his approach — new to the eyes of the electorate — pleasantly surprises the people.

Asim Dasgupta, finance minister of Bengal since 1987, comes across as a different person to the voters of Khardah as he takes on Trinamul's Amit Mitra, billed the possible finance minister of Bengal if Mamata Banerjee rides the wave of change to Writers' Buildings.

“I have never seen him campaigning this hard,” says the owner of a readymade garment shop in Khardah as Dasgupta, along with his cabinet colleague Gautam Deb, leads a roadshow on Sunday morning.

Over 10,000 people take part in the show of strength rally at Khardah, a Left citadel since Independence that the comrades are desperately trying to protect from crumbling.

“Khardah has never thrown up a Congress or Trinamul Congress winner in any Assembly election. The socialists used to win from here in the 1950s and the ’60s. Even in 1972, the Left retained the seat,” boasts local CPM leader Kalyan Mukherjee, one of the main campaign managers for Dasgupta.

Although history favours the incumbent — he won from the seat with a margin of 42,305 votes in 2006 — the immediate past is keeping him on his toes and taking him to all the corners of the constituency, barely 20km from the heart of Calcutta.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamul's Saugata Ray got a lead of 1,451 votes from Khardah Assembly segment and emerged the winner from Dum Dum parliamentary constituency. Although the total votes polled in favour of the Left was 800 less than that of Trinamul in next year’s civic elections, the united Opposition managed to wrest the municipal board from the Left.

Dasgupta, however, swats away these statistics and presents a brave face before he takes guard for a door-to-door campaign at Adarshapally, part of Panihati municipality that has come under Khardah due to delimitation, on a sunny Saturday morning.

“There were some organisational problems but we have sorted them out. I am not worried,” says the PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The fact that his opponent is the secretary-general of Ficci and is a prospective finance minister — also an economist with a PhD from the Duke University in the US —doesn’t seem to bother Dasgupta, who was senior to Mitra in their alma mater, Presidency College.

Without going into any comparisons with his opponent, Dasgupta also rolls out his academic achievements — record marks in post-graduation, his famous teachers like Sukhamoy Chakraborty and Bhabatosh Dutta, his PhD thesis on growth and equity and his recent works on development management.

Amit Mitra on the campaign trail. He said his opponents were no longer in disarray. Pictures by Anindya Shankar Ray

He also doesn’t forget to remind his performance as the head of the empowered committee of state finances. “They (Ficci) had called me to explain the roadmap to VAT implementation across the country. My opponent may have forgotten all that,” smiles Dasgupta, in his trademark white shirt, white trousers and black shoes.

The trigger behind the effort in explaining his credentials is Trinamul’s campaign pitch in which the party is projecting Mitra as the most suitable man to heal the “debt-ridden Bengal economy”.

Mitra himself, however, has not made any such claims. But his campaign managers are telling the voters that Mitra can change the face of the four panchayats — Patulia, Bandipur, Bilkanda I and Bilkanda II — and the two municipalities — Khardah town and parts of Panihati town — that come under Khardah constituency.

“There is so much of potential here, but nobody has ever tried to harness them. I met a mango orchard owner, who only sells the fruit but doesn’t know he can earn more my engaging in mango pulp production…. The kirana shop owners here don’t know that if they pull in and invest in a software, they will be better off,” says Mitra.

During his intensive door-to-door campaigning, Dasgupta is also doling out such tips to his voters in an attempt to outdo Mitra in public relation skills. An MLA for over 24 years, Dasgupta knows local people and he stops seeing familiar faces to ask: “Shob bhalo to? (All is well, isn’t it?).”

Not just the academic credentials, the two candidates have few other things in common — both are soft spoken and gracious about each other. Mitra, in his characteristic style, greets people by saying “bhalo thakben (please stay well)” before explaining the pitfalls of 34-year monopoly of a single political party.

Thanks to the erudition of the two candidates, the voters in Khardah are learning about a slew of national and international issues — from India’s stand in WTO on farm subsidies to America’s interest in Indian markets.

Closer home, the issue of closed factories in the area has emerged another major topic in the campaign. Mitra has prepared a document listing the closed industrial units — from jute mills to chemical industries — and the resulting job losses and he is reading it out in his meetings.

“The decline of the industrial belt captures the internal contradictions in the ruling CPM. While the chief minister was looking for investments, his comrades were having regular conflicts with the management. Instead of resolving the conflicts, the Left leaders played a role in closing down the units and people lost their jobs,” Mitra says in his election rallies.

Other than claiming that they are doing their best to open these units and bring more investments in the state, the ruling CPM doesn’t have much to answer on how big industries suffered during their rule. Occasionally, Dasgupta quotes from NSSO data to explain how Bengal has secured the first place in the country in terms of number of small-scale units but job losses touch many a raw nerves in the industrial belt.

The poll outcome, however, will depend on something else, admit campaign managers of both the candidates as they gear up to mobilise their organisational might before the poll day.

The CPM held a rally with Deb on Sunday morning to show that the organisational differences — that resulted in a defeat in the civic polls — have been resolved. “The entire party machinery is united this time and we are fighting this battle together,” says Mukherjee, who was sidelined on disciplinary grounds following the Left’s rout in the Lok Sabha polls.

On the same day, Trinamul organised a roadshow in the afternoon to prove that their organisational strength was no less than that of the CPM.

Although the turnout makes Mitra happy, he admits that his opponents are no longer in disarray. But Mitra is still hopeful. “This time people will vote for change and for Mamata and that’s my biggest strength,” he says hoping for the Didi magic to work for him.

Even as his supporters await a bigger role for him in shaping Bengal’s economy, a section in the Trinamul is wary. “If Didi is so keen on him becoming the finance minister, she should have given him a safer seat,” says a Trinamul supporter.

Steering clear of any controversy, Mitra says Mamata must have given him the seat after the necessary due diligence as she is fully aware of the poll arithmetic. According to him, if the rural voters — around 60,000 out of 1.68 lakh — maintain their voting pattern and the voters in Khardah and Panihati towns vote in his favour, he can make it to the Assembly.

The response — loaded with conditions — is an indication that Mitra is preparing for a cliff-hanger and seeking help of the Mamata wave to capture Khardah from incumbent Dasgupta.

Devadeep Purohit in Khardah