Trinamool runs poster campaign across city — ‘Mota Bhai Vote Nai’

Ahead of the public meeting of Union Home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah in Kolkata on Wednesday, the ruling party of Bengal, Trinamool Congress (TMC), covered the city in posters with the slogan ‘Mota Bhai Vote Nai’.

The Gujarati term ‘mota bhai’ signifies elder brother and was an apparent allusion to Shah who belongs to that state. Posters of ‘Mota Bhai Vote Nai’, which translates to ‘Big Brother No Votes’, were put up in several areas, mainly in North and Central Kolkata, such as Shyambazar, Shobhabazar, Sealdah, Hatibagan, Nagerbazar, Girish Park, Salt Lake etc.

These were deliberately put up in such locations where the BJP feels they may be able to swing some votes towards themselves in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections since these areas have a substantial number of non-Bengali voters who are mostly traders from different parts of the country,

including Gujarat.

TMC is of the strong belief that BJP will not be able to dent its vote bank in Bengal in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The poster initiative by TMC’s media and I-T cell was aimed at driving home the point that Shah, who Trinamool regards as a “migratory bird”, comes to supposedly think of Bengal only before elections.

According to TMC leaders, nothing that Shah or the other BJP bigwigs have to say in Bengal will ever touch the people here who are affected by the harsh reality allegedly designed by the BJP-led Central government which includes depriving Bengal of its due funds. Price hikes and unemployment are especially issues highlighted by TMC.

A TMC leader said that such random visits to Bengal by Shah and other BJP national level leaders was also apparent before the 2021 Bengal Assembly elections but it yielded no fruit since the voters in Bengal trust Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who has delivered schemes which benefitted lakhs of people, it was opined.