KOLKATA: With West Bengal set to emerge as the centre stage for an anti-BJP front in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, rural West Bengal will soon see plays depicting Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee’s move to the national stage, even before the start of the party’s poll campaign.
The West Bengal chief minister is seen as the front runner for leading any anti-BJP front as she has been most active in bringing together various chief ministers and leaders of non-Congress and non-BJP parties, giving rise to a demand among Trinamool workers and leaders to see their Didi as a prime ministerial candidate in 2019.
The BJP and the parties opposed to it have both planned massive rallies at Maidan in central Kolkata in January, where anti-BJP leaders led by Mamata Banerjee and BJP leaders led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to gather. But before that, a Kolkata-based drama group has created a three-and-half-hour-long Bengali language play called ‘Mamatar dake Dilli Chalo’ (Mamata beckons, let’s march to Delhi), which would be enacted in rural parts from Diwali onwards.
The 12-member drama group, based in Chitpur locality of north Kolkata, had earlier created two plays centred around Mamata Banerjee — ‘Banglar Masnade Mamata’ (Mamata on Bengal’s throne) and ‘Ma Matir Lorai’ (Fight for mother and land) — that were enacted across rural Bengal in the run-up to the 2011 Assembly elections.
The much-watched election was historic as it brought to an end the 34-year-long rule of the Left Front and brought the TMC to power. The two plays have performed a total of 350 times and were immensely popular among the people at that time. About the content of the newest play, scriptwriter Ashok Dey said: “The play will show Didi’s challenges in dealing with the Maoist insurgency and the Gorkhaland crisis in the eastern state, her opposition to demonetisation and NRC, and also her pet schemes.”
Behala resident Sita Ghosh is rehearsing Mamata Banerjee’s mannerisms to depict her in the play. She had portrayed the TMC supremo in the earlier two plays and even received a letter of appreciation from the West Bengal Chief Minister on July 21, 2015, a day the party marks as ‘Martyr’s Day’ every year.
“I have been practising Didi’s mannerisms, including her way of talking, gazing, walking, sitting, and even her voice. During the previous plays in 2010-11, Didi was plump, but now she is slim. I had to reduce my weight accordingly,” she said. The political drama on Mamata Banerjee’s national ambitions may strike a chord among people in rural Bengal, particularly in places where the BJP has failed to make any impact.