West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an unpredictable politician known for formulating strategies to turn adverse situations in her favour, may have managed to gain people’s ‘sympathy’ once again, even as she fights former TMC heavyweight and now a BJP leader, Suvendu Adhikari, in the Nandigram seat, political observers and party leaders in north Bengal feel. However, amid such assumption, state BJP observer Kailash Vijayvargiya yesterday said that the CM’s “traditional style to earn sympathy votes had boomeranged” this time.

There is a fight going on between the BJP and the Trinamul Congress over the issue of attack (“hamlaa”) and accident (“durghatna”), following Miss Banerjee’s claim that she was attacked dur ing campaigning in Nandigram.

Going by the initial statement made by Miss Banerjee immediately after the incident, TMC leaders, from the secretary general to the block president and MPs, have been organizing protest programmes across the state and showcasing the incident as ‘hamlaa,” while the party today lodged a complaint with the ECI in Delhi.

“Any at tack on Miss Banerjee, the only woman chief minister in the country at present, can earn sympathy votes, and her plans to reach out to the people through political rallies by using the wheelchair continue to earn more sympathy,” an observer said.

On the other hand, the BJP leadership is confident of overcoming the situation brought about by the Nandigram incident by showcasing the law and order problem, which is a subject of the state government.

Former IGP, Pankaj Datta, during a panel discussion on television, recently pointed out to how the CM’s threetier security was breached and top security officials failed to maintain protocol. “Following standard operating protocol, the CM cannot sit on the front seat of the car,” he said.

Miss Banerjee has been using the front seat on the driver’s side ever since she became the Youth Congress leader. Even after becoming the CM, she continued to sit on the front seat, while she had been using the same seat when the Nandigram incident happened. She was using the front seat when the door was opened for her.

Significantly, the state BJP leadership and the party’s groups of intellectuals have been circulating a video clip, which has gone viral, based on a Tollywood film. The video clip shows a political leader hatching a plot to fake an attack on him just before the election campaign begins. The politician also informs his close associate that he would release a press statement from the hospital and then he would use the wheelchair.

The BJP in Bengal tweeted the video clip and wrote: “Any resemblance to recent events is purely coincidental…”

As intellectuals come to a conclusion judiciously, the common people in the state are very much sympathetic and argue in Mamata Banerjee’s favour.