Tamil Nadu | WAR OF WORDSYes, literally. If you had trouble catching that pun, make that ‘war over words’. Linguistic pride has, well, pride of place as one of the founding strands of Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian politics. Consequently, it’s never been too tough to flash the spectre of ‘Hindi imposition’ to get the native choir to sing in harmony during voting time.The Centre’s renewed invocation of the three-language formula, as a compulsory setting for CBSE schools from Class 6, has only made it a handier plank to deploy, giving M.K. Stalin a red rag to wave about. “Not as long as the DMK is in power,” the CM declares emphatically, in response to Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s imprecations. Like many of his predecessors, he also questioned the lack of reciprocity. Would students in Hindi-speaking states be required to learn southern languages?Party MP Kanimozhi gave it a comic-grandiose twist, calling the polls a civilisational contest between “Nagpur and Keezhadi”.West Bengal | CLOSE-SHAVE DEMOCRACY POLL-TIME THEATRE: BJP's Anup Kumar Saha shaves a voter TMC's Partha Hazari makes rotisLalu Prasad Yadav of Bihar was a master at this genre of street theatre: he has famously given a roadside shave to a customer, and hosed down a slum boy non-millionaire. More recently, RaGa has dirtied his hands at a mechanic’s shop, sowed paddy, driven a truck, worn a coolie’s garb to cart luggage, and sailed out to sea with fishermen. The show now comes to Bengal. The run-up to voting, otherwise fraught and fractious, has given itself a lighter human touch as more than one neta reprised the common man—and woman—persona. Maybe a wee short of method acting, since it’s only a walk-on part for an election campaign, but the roles do have variety.Anup Kumar Saha of the BJP, from Birbhum’s Dubrajpur, briefly offered grooming services. At a roadside stall, razor in hand, he shaved a voter’s beard. It was not entirely clear whether the customer asked for it or whether democracy simply arrived mid-shave; anyway, his jawline was on the line while his whiskers got trimmed like voter’s names in an SIR. Not far away, in Hooghly’s Pursurah, Partha Hazari of the Trinamool Congress walked into a home and began making rotis. Thankfully, there seemed to be cooking gas. If fuel was running out anywhere, Mita Bag of the TMC had a solution to that too. In Sabang, Paschim Medinipur, she was seen helping dry cow dung cakes. Before anyone takes to the kitchen, there has to be food, of course. Tending to this expediency was Biman Ghosh of the BJP, who took to ploughing fields in Pursurah. Dr Sharadwat Mukherjee, BJP candidate from Bidhannagar, pitched in there too, carrying a katla fish all through the campaign, perhaps to assure the electorate that the saffronistas wouldn’t impose vegetarianism on Bengal!Whoever gets the award must thank former actor Hiran Chatterjee, the outgoing MLA from Kharagpur Sadar. While campaigning for the Lok Sabha seat of Medinipur in 2024, he had posed with a voter covered in soap, trying to bathe! One word of caution. Hiran babu lost that election, and is now essaying his previous, less ambitious role: as a candidate from Shyampur. Well, politics can be a humbling performance in itself.Tamil Nadu | QUESTION OF POSITION Tamil Nadu is used to its leaders exuding a certain imperial hauteur. The late J. Jayalalithaa was the exemplar in this department—back then, India was not infrequently treated to visuals of loyalists prostrating themselves at the robed and enthroned AIADMK regina’s lotus feet. In a curious throwback to those days, a kindred visual has entered—or been forcefully inserted—into the ongoing poll campaign. DMK scion Udhayanidhi Stalin is carting it around to rallies and showing it off to the citizenry. The giver of obeisance is the crux here, as much as its recipient. For, the picture shows the AIADMK’s chief ministerial face, Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS), half-way to a sashtanga namaskaram before V.K. Sasikala, seated a la her mentress. It happened in 2017, when she was left bereft of CMship by an SC stricture. Look how he’s “crawling” to power, Stalin Jr has been saying. “Am I a snake or lizard,” EPS replies, saying seeking blessings was part of Indian culture. Sasikala, now a foe, won’t be offering any.West Bengal | FOREIGN HAND! Pakistan’s motormouth defence minister Khawaja Asif has chugged right into Bengal’s poll season, with a remark that travelled farther than perhaps intended—all the way across the peninsula. Any future “operation” by India could see retaliation stretch all the way to Kolkata, quoth he. Mamata Banerjee, not one to miss any random chance for rhetorical ammunition, pounced on that, asking why Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lost his usually stentorian voice. Shouldn’t he have acknowledged this threat to Bengal? This recourse to high geopolitics was made to the unsuspecting masses gathered at Nadia’s Bethuadahari, whose horizons are likelier set on the Radcliffe Line closer home.Tamil Nadu | WHATEVER'S LEFT Being solid on your Marx is no guarantee that you're good with math. The Communist parties in TN have seen their marks cut even before the exam. Both the CPI(M) and CPI have suffered a trim in their share of tickets: they agreed, allegedly willingly, to settle for five seats each, one less than last time, in aid of the 'larger cause' of defeating the BJP. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi made concessions too. But Stalin has funnelled some of that surplus to the DMDK, a 'has-been' party. It's dialectical.- EndsPublished By: Shyam BalasubramanianPublished On: Apr 10, 2026 20:05 IST
