Kartik Banerjee looks tired and under stress. “There is uncertainty,” Kartik, a younger sibling of Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, tells The Telegraph Online sitting at his Kalighat Road office on Monday morning.
Outside the office is a crowd of Trinamool supporters, mostly women, who participated in a padyatra around ward 73 and part of ward 71. One woman, with a hint of pride, says she went to her office, signed the attendance register and slipped out to join the campaign. Another elderly woman is waiting for a sari with the Trinamool party symbol. Kartik assures he will get it delivered to her.
Kartik Banerjee at his Kalighat Road office on Monday morning Arnab Ganguly
Kartik Banerjee says he has barely slept more than four hours a day in the last five months.
His wife, Kajari, is the councillor from ward 73 and has the unenvious task of ensuring a lead for Mamata from her ward. The family connection with the chief minister does not make it any easier for the Banerjee couple during election season.
Mamata, daughter of late Pramileswar and Gayatri Banerjee, has six brothers – Ajit, Amit, the late Kali, Kartik, Ganesh and Swapan – and a sister, Nanti.
The Trinamool’s national general secretary Abhishek is Amit Banerjee’s son. Kartik and Kajari have a son, Abesh, who is a doctor.
“I have to be with the party workers constantly. These workers are with us in every circumstance. If I am not with them, why will they trust us?” Kartik says.
For nearly six months now, Kartik has kept his office open through the day.
BJP flags flutter on Kalighat Road, adjacent to Harish Chatterjee Street, where Mamata lives Arnab Ganguly
“There is so much work to do. The SIR [special intensive revision of electoral rolls] verification process, preparing the voter’s slip, securing police permissions [which he says the Trinamool is being denied].
“We couldn’t upload on Suvidha App seeking permission for rallies, the BJP gets permissions. Thnuto Jagannath kore rekhechhe [Our arms have been cut off],” he says.
On Monday, less than 48 hours before the second phase of polling in Bengal in the remaining 142 Assembly seats including Bhabanipur, Kartik is spending the morning organising last-minute padyatras in ward 73 – parts of Bhabanipur, Patuapara and Kalighat.
There is more to be done during the day before Mamata returns to Bhabanipur towards the close of campaigning leading a march from Hazra Law college to Gopalnagar, crisscrossing the constituencies of Ballygunge, Rashbihari and Bhabanipur.
30B Harish Chatterjee Street, the most famous address in Bengal, is in ward 73. The same place from where Mamata waged her political battle against the CPM, from where she has been running the Trinamool Congress since 1998 and the state since 2011.
“I have never seen such atrocities. I have been involved with the election process since 1980,” says Kartik.
“Our permissions for meetings and rallies are denied, but the BJP gets permissions at the last moment. On Sunday we were told to remove the microphones. Their meeting was supposed to end at 4pm. Went on till 6pm. Suvendu [Adhikari, Mamata’s challenger from Bhabanipur] came and abused us. We could do nothing,” says Kartik.
“But he is an outsider. He doesn’t know Bhabanipur like we do.”
Mamata’s former trusted aide and now her bête noir, leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, is contesting against her in Bhabanipur.
That has made the constituency the most-watched poll battle in Bengal this season.
In 2021, Mamata took the battle to Suvendu’s home turf, Nandigram, and lost. A repeat, five years later, even if the Trinamool gets a majority, would be disastrous for the party.
Bhabanipur constituency, formed after delimitation in 2009, has been the Trinamool’s stronghold. In 2011, Mamata’s close aide Subrata Bakshi won from the seat by a margin of 49,936 votes.
Taking the by-poll route, Mamata made her entry into the Bengal Assembly from Bhabanipur in 2011 with over 54,000 votes more than her nearest rival. Five years later, in 2016, her margin dipped to just over 25,000.
While Mamata was busy in Nandigram, the Trinamool veteran Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay held fort and won Bhabanipur with a margin of 28,719 votes in 2021.
Five months later, in her third term as chief minister, Mamata re-entered the Bengal Assembly from Bhabanipur with 58,835 more votes than the BJP nominee, again via the bypoll route.
This time, Kartik pins his uncertainty on what he calls the Election Commission’s “bias”, but the real reason is buried in the numbers.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in the Bhabanipur Assembly segment of Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat, Trinamool’s lead was only 8,297 votes.
A congratulatory message for Mamata from the Kalighat Saraswati Sporting Club in front of two incomplete idols at Patuapara, Kalighat Arnab Ganguly
All eight wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation in the constituency – wards 63 (parts of Chowringhee, Taltala, Park Street, Shakespeare Sarani, Maidan, and Hastings), 70 (Jadubabu’s Bazaar), 71 (Bhabanipur), 72 (Chakraberia, Padmapukur, and Bakulbagan), 73 (parts of Bhabanipur, Patuapara, and Kalighat), 74 (Alipore), 77 (parts of Kidderpore and Watgunge), and 82 (Chetla) – are held by the Trinamool.
Yet, the BJP managed a lead in five of these wards – 63, 70, 71, 72 and 74 – in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“Among the Hindi-speaking voters there is a tendency to lean towards Ram [the BJP] during the Lok Sabha polls. This is the Assembly election. The wards where we trailed will vote differently this time,” says Kartik.
The Trinamool led in wards 73, 77, and 82 in 2024.
As the campaign nears the end, Kartik is already setting things in motion for the next stage, polling day. A meeting has been scheduled for Monday evening, after campaigning ends, to discuss the strategy for April 29.
The workers have been asked to wait downstairs while the leaders chalk out the strategy.
“In the Hindi-speaking areas, send those who speak Hindi. Bengali women in the Bengali areas,” Kartik instructs a Trinamool women’s wing leader.
He expects more voters will be out in the polling booths than in previous years, like in the first phase of polling held on April 23, .
The BJP hopes to cause the grandest upset in Bengal’s election history by defeating Mamata Banerjee in her own backyard.
Though Bengal’s turnout has historically been above 80 per cent for decades, Bhabanipur has defied the trend. In the 2011 Assembly elections, the turnout was 63.8 per cent, which rose to 67.8 per cent in 2016.
In the last Assembly election, the turnout in Bhabanipur was 63.39 per cent.
“Many voters [in Bhabanipur] are reluctant to vote,” says a BJP leader in south Kolkata. “Our door-to-door campaign focussed on convincing voters to step out of their homes and cast their votes.
“We are confident the voters in Bakulbagan, Chakraberia, Padmapukur, Shakespeare Sarani and Park Street will vote in large numbers this time and vote for us. Then we can beat the lead the Trinamool gets in Chetla and parts of Kidderpore,” the BJP leader adds.
Kartik believes Bhabanipur will stay loyal to its daughter. “The people are on our side,” he says. “The people know us. The BJP will not succeed.”