BJP hopes Mamata's 'poor' handling of Covid will push voters towards it

The BJP believed that together, the pandemic and the cyclone provided the political fillip it wanted

Weighed down by the Covid-19 pandemic and devastated by the Cyclone Amphan, Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) president, recently spoke with her party’s elected representatives in a video conference to elicit their feedback on the impact of the crises. It is reliably learnt that those who chipped in gave a buoyant account of the ground situation. Prashant Kishor, political consultant hired by Mamata to help strategise and form a plan of attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2021 Assembly elections, interceded and counselled caution.

Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee, her nephew who helms