How to be scrupulously dismissive about the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP ask the veteran of many political battles and the West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee. Which is why at a public rally in the Diamond Harbour district of West Bengal she thundered as panchayat polls approach next month: “Did Congress or CPIM ever give free rice to the poor people of Bengal?”

The rhetorical question was followed up with another one, treating the saffron party as second fiddle, “And what about the BJP?” She answered her own question. “They only gave it during the Covid-19 pandemic but then took it away.”

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To thunderous applause, Didi continued, “If you don’t vote us back to power in the panchayat polls, who will give you Laksmi Bhandar and free rice? Who will give you Kanyasree and free education for girls?”

It is clear that Banerjee’s campaigning in the villages of Bengal before the panchayat polls is focused on highlighting the public distribution schemes that she has launched in the last decade that she has been in power.

“Didi understands the needs of the masses like no other leader today and she has been designing developmental programmes for them and implementing them at the grassroots level,” Dola Sen, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member told The Statesman.

Indeed there are reportedly 68 schemes addressing various issues in need of development in the state.

A list of the salient ones was released by the party in May 2018, timed to coincide with the panchayat elections held that year.

In the last five years, Didi has launched other schemes among them the hugely popular Lakshmi Bhandar scheme which provides financial support to female heads of households. Women householders from poor families are entitled to an allowance of Rs 500 per month and women householders belonging to SC/ST families are entitled to monthly allowances of Rs 1000.

The ones in the pipeline include the Pathashree-Rastashree scheme in which “around 12,000 km of roads will be constructed or reconstructed in 29,475 villages of the state” according to sources in Trinamool.

Even opposition leaders have commented on Banerjee’s ability to address issues at the grassroots. In a recent interview to The Statesman,” Bengal BJP’s Chandra Kumar Bose had conceded that Mamata “knows Bengal like the palm of her hand and her schemes have worked to ameliorate many problems of the poor, especially women and girls.”

Speaking at the rally, which was a part of the mass two-month, on-foot outreach program undertaken by Abhishek Banerjee, her nephew, and Trinamool general, Mamata asked another series of rhetorical questions. “Do you want to be deprived of all these?” The rapturous crowd – the rural electorate in these Panchayat Polls shouted, “No”.