The fact that Paschim Banga Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is an ardent admirer of the poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore is known to all. So it came as no big surprise when her partymen played Tagore songs instead of shouting slogans or putting up graffiti as part of their campaign days before their chief is about to contest the elections on Sunday, September 25. It is mostly soft soulful music that is being played to charm the 2,12,545 voters of 262 polling stations.

On their part the CPM has been using slogans to point out how whimsical and lawless her four months’ tenure has been. Aware of the fact that they have pitched a green-horn against a seasoned politician, these slogans come more as warnings than as tools to dissuade the voters.

Banerjee had sworn in as the Chief Minister of Paschim Banga on May 20. According to the Constitution she needs to get elected as a member of the State Legislative Assembly by November 19. She had won the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and has been an MP since then. Subrata Bakshi, State PWD Minister, stepped down from his Assembly seat from Bhawanipore constituency to allow Banerjee contest from here.

This Assembly sector has been a part of the CM’s Kolkata Lok Sabha constituency which has remained loyal to her since 1991. Her prime opponent, Nandini Mukherjee, a Jadavpur University professor, has been associated with the pro-Left Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association since 1992.

The connection and the time is indeed a strange coincidence for both the women in the fray. It was this area (read Jadavpur constituency) in the early nineties that gave a young Banerjee her way to the Parliament when she defeated CPM stalwart Somnath Chatterjee in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections.

An insider from the Left admitted that Nandini was the only option left to them as there was no willing heavy weight CPM leader, who was ready to contest against the Chief Minister.