Mamata-Modi hate story: 3 lessons for the BJP's PM candidate

So, Narendra Modi went where CPI(M), Maoists, and the fearless south Calcutta mosquito have never dared hover close to. No, we are not talking about the traffic on Park Street during a summer afternoon, with a Trinamool Congress rally happening nearby. Modi crossed the Bengali lakhsman rekha called culture (pronounced as kaal-char) and suggested that art to Banerjee is what in AAP language, Adani is to Modi. Now, hell hath no fury like a Bengali woman’s art and craft skills scorned. So, Derek O’Brien, Mamata’s aide de camp, jumped to his lady’s defence and paid Modi back in kind - by calling him the ‘butcher of Gujarat’. Rewind to a year back. Modi, then in Uttar Pradesh, was virtually chewing up Akhilesh Yadav, when he said, “Look at Mamata ji in West Bengal. She fights for her state, she took on the UPA for her state.” And while the CPM kept crying itself hoarse over Modi the mass murderer, Mamata kept herself busy bashing the CPM and ignoring Modi. Just when you thought the Congress’ nightmare couple might come out in public and declare they’re a team, a twist worthy of a Bigg Boss blockbuster episode took place. Now Mamata and Modi have gone from being prospective good friends to the new Shahrukh-Salman of the block. Here’s a future checklist for Mamata-bashing, in case Modi still has an appetite for: [caption id=“attachment_1500997” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Did the Gujarat Chief Minister go too far in criticising Mamata’s paintings?[/caption] - Never make fun of Mamata’s paintings. This, unfortunately, he has now learnt the hard way. But the fable goes in Bengal, that a painting a day, keeps the Maoists away. ‘Maoists’ in TMC language on the present day is any meme, forwarded WhatsApp, red-tailed cat, deodorant or variety of hilsa that some TMC cadre might have developed a dislike for. For Mamata to not brand them ‘Maoists’ on her fans’ behest and throw them in to jail, like she has in the past, sections of West Bengal possibly hope that their chief minister is kept distracted by her artistic pursuits rather than turn her focus to them. Modi, instead, dared to disturb the universe! And how! - Forget what Vogue says, Blue is indeed the warmest colour. Just after Mamata assumed power in Bengal, and the streets in Kolkata turned many shades of green from the World Cup-win like revelry, more than half of Kolkata woke up everyday expecting to see the red-bricked Writers’ Buildings coloured over and looking like the building cousin of the Maidan. However, Banerjee was not one to take the same old path of shaking things up. So one morning after another, one bus shade and one Sulabh complex at a time, Kolkata turned blue. Reports suggested that the cost of blue-washing Kolkata could be a staggering Rs 30 crore. Now, if Modi gets a whiff of the same, imagine the analogy he would come up with? Going by the nature of his claims, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate would possibly say that with that kind of money, he would build such grand water pipes in Gujarat that Banerjee can hold an inter-state mobile painting exhibition on a metro train which can comfortably run through them. And if he does, trust another Indian state to acquire a a few Maoists - Gujarat that is. Modi, of course, comes in an indelible shade of saffron. From the lotus-print stole he wore to Varanasi on his nomination day to his ‘har har Modi’ army that would pale Delhi’s best gajar ka halwa, the Gujarat CM or his fans don’t seem too willing to see any colour that is not theirs. Mamata’s blue on the other hand is her draping ‘secularism’ on Kolkata’s sleeves and hence works as a statement against anything orange. And the twain, it seems, will never mix now! - Never utter the C-word. The CPI(M) that is. If Banerjee gets indigestion and there’s no Gelusil at hand, in TMC vocabulary, it is surely a big CPM conspiracy to wipe the Bengali stomach’s oxygen out from the face of the world. If Banerjee’s little car is found with crow poop on its windshield one morning, it has be a Left-leaning crow’s conspiracy to taint the car’s image. If Banerjee is stuck in Dalhousie’s infamous traffic jam, again, it must be a mob of CPM sympathizers who have have descended on Kolkata’s streets to irritate the Bengal CM. Narendra Modi was probably committing a lesser blasphemy when he home-delivered Taxila to Bihar than when he said that the Bengal government was just a CPM-government in the shape of .. err… Banerjee. To Banerjee, the insult probably worked in a way it would if someone called Modi just another Robert Vadra. Now Mamata Banerjee’s hate story with Narendra Modi has come a full circle. And the only friends Bappi Lahiri has in Bengal now are his gold chains. So unless Modi finds a way back to Banerjee’s good books, the BJP might he left scraping the leftovers of the poll cauldron in Bengal.