Kolkata: Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee on Saturday hit the roads in Howrah district on her sixth padayatra in
less than a fortnight on a day when her arch political rival
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee organised a
massive roadshow in his constituency.
Banerjee walked down an entire six km stretch without break
from near BESU campus at Shibpur to Salkia, while
Bhattacherjee, chose an open jeep during his eight km roadshow
from Jadavpur to Kamalgaji covering four Assembly
constituencies in South 24 Parganas.
For Bhattacharjee it was his first roadshow in the run up
to the Assembly polls.
"Badla noi, badal chai" (We want change, not revenge) was
the theme of Banerjee`s campaign.
The more than two hour-long walk by the Railway Minister
was the sixth undertaken by her in the past 14 days since
March 27 when she officially kicked off the party`s poll
campaign, the earlier ones being held in the city areas.
With today`s padayatra the TC chief, who is leave tonight
to campaign in north Bengal, has walked a total 49 km in her
roadshows.
A large number of Congressmen with the party flags took
part in the padayatra at a time when rebels of the party are
contesting against TC nominees in several constituencies in
some districts including north Dinajpur, Murshidabad and Malda
allegedly at the behest of respective district presidents of
the party.
Howrah district has been traditionally a left bastion and
Left Front had won most of the 16 Assembly seats in the
district in 2006 Assembly polls. But the district swayed the
Trinamool way in 2008 rural body polls and the party won both
the Lok Sabha seats in the district in 2009.
PTI
