Kolkata, March 22 A fresh political debate has erupted in West Bengal over posters of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee that have surfaced in several areas of southern Kolkata in the last 36 hours.
Incidentally, both the "posters and counter-posters" have been displayed on behalf of the same group, FAM4TMC, a self-proclaimed online association of supporters of the ruling party in the state.
At the same time, the backgrounds of both the varying posters, one displaying the picture of Mamata Banerjee and the other of Abhishek Banerjee, have “yellow” backgrounds.
The interest of the common people and political observers started on Friday, when the first variety of posters were displayed in different parts of south Kolkata.
The posters with a “yellow” background displayed the picture of Abhishek Banerjee with a caption in Bengali— “Adhinayak Abhishek (Captain Abhishek)".
Rumblings started both among the political observers as well as within the Trinamool Congress leadership on the reason behind displaying the posters carrying only the picture of the party’s general secretary and that too, describing him as the “captain”.
However, the debates started taking fresh turns on Saturday afternoon, as besides the first variety of posters, another type of posters with the same “yellow” background were displayed. The only difference was that the second one displayed the picture of Mamata Banerjee with a caption in Bengali -- "Sarbadhinayika Jai He (Hail the lady supreme commander)".
Now debates have started making the rounds in the political circles and corridors of power in the state whether this poster-duel is the signal of a fresh eruption of the debate on “old guards versus fresh blood" within the party.
However, the organisers of FAM4TMC claim that an unnecessary controversy is being created by the opposition parties on this issue.
“Though we are supporters of Trinamool Congress, none of our members are whole-time activists of the ruling party. They have their own professional preoccupations and after fulfilling that they do their part in campaigning for the party. There is nothing controversial about displaying a particular variety of poster first and the second variety then,” said a FAM4TMC organiser.
However, political observers feel the matter is not that simple as explained by the organisers.
“Had the case been that simple, the organisers would have displayed both varieties of posters at the same time. But here the second variety was displayed almost 24 hours after the display of the first variety. Surely, this factor has enough elements for a political debate,” said a city-based political observer.
Recently, a meeting of the core committee of the Trinamool Congress was constituted by the Chief Minister to identify the bogus voters in West Bengal. Abhishek Banerjee skipped that meeting.
However, just a few days after the core committee meeting, he addressed a virtual meeting on the same issue with all leadership levels in the party.
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