The juicy mango fruit has been used in the past to sweeten the bitterest political climate between the two countries. Political leaders have sent mangoes as gifts — Jawahar Lal Nehru to Mao Zedong, Sheikh Hasina to Indian PM Narendra Modi, etc.
Now interestingly, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has sent mangoes as gifts to the man she wants should ‘go’ – politically speaking — the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
As panchayat polls near, the summer heat combines with the fiery political debates that only an ocean of ice can douse. Mamata Banerjee is putting to use Himsagar (literally means “ocean of ice” in Bengali) mangoes as gifts to her political friends and rivals.
Just two days ago she reportedly had the state’s top varieties of mangoes – Himsagar, Fazli, Langra and Laxman Bhog — packed in huge containers and sent them to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Draupadi Murmu and others.
This is, of course, not the first time that Mamata has sent mangoes and other gifts to Modi or other political rivals. For the past decade since she came to power, she has made a tradition of it. She is said to have sent mangoes to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi last year. And many won’t have forgotten the sweet memories of Modi’s famous interview with actor Akshay Kumar in which he revealed that Mamata keeps sending him sweets and even kurta pyajamas on the occasion of Durga Puja. “I have many friends in the opposition parties,” he had said, “You will be surprised to know that Mamata Didi still sends me a kurta or two every year.”
While speculations galore about whether these tactics by Didi are to soften the acrimony between rivals, especially before election season and which coincides with the mango season, others see it as part of Didi’s unique style of functioning. Before she came to power as Chief Minister of West Bengal, she had once dropped into the home of former Bengal Chief Minister, late Siddhartha Shankar Ray with a bundle of phuchkas (paani puris) and tamarind water in containers. Last heard the consignment of mangoes is to reach PM Narendra Modi today. No, the tracking details are not available.