Being the ruling party, the TMC seems to have a leg up over its rivals. Realising that people's grievances right from 2011, the year it came to power cannot be fully addressed overnight, it embarked on a series of festivals and fairs which are a very big draw for the populace.

Knowing well it may not have the traction of actor-playwrights like Utpal Dutt and film makers like Mrinal Sen, the TMC think tank have deployed this fair festival formula to keep people in good humour.

Mati Utsav held in Burdwan is a. case in point. If the theatre of Dutt and films of Sen were for the discerning public, a rural household visiting the Mati Utsav will never feel bored.

Moreover, Mati Utsab gels with the heady slogan of TMC "Ma, Mati Manush". Besides having a good time at the fair ground, the party faithful can propagate its ideology to the people visiting the fair.

Unwilling to be tagged with the label of only catering for the rural populace, the TMC has devised sophisticated entertainment fare for the urban voters too. These are the NatyaMela, Sangeet Mela and the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF).

Though Amitabh Bachchan or the Big B makes a regular appearance at KIFF ensuring a large turnout, it has been alleged that this film festival has lost its international character owing to the paucity of the participation of overseas films.

The ruling dispensation is not too much worried over this. It helps it to shed the label of elitism and strengthen its connect with the masses whose support will make or mar a nominee's fate in the coming elections.

Our party has a mix of offerings in the cultural field, which caters to the intellectuals and common people alike, state agriculture department minister, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said. After all, our chief minister Mamata Banerjee is a poet and a litterateur.

There are book fairs in Kolkata and the districts, the minister said. Baul Fakir Utsav at Kenduli in Birbhum, Children's Film Festival and Pithe Puli Utsav comprise this mix bridging the urban-rural divide, he said.

What he left unsaid that a battery of performers from Tollygunge, the hub of film studios in Kolkata including Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, TMC MPs both and other actors will take the field addressing election rallies. It is the size of the crowd that TMC is aiming at to swing this crucial election on its favour.

It is the dwindling crowd at the cultural programmes of the Left read CPI(M) that is reassuring the ruling dispensation in the state. But though the CPI(M) is no longer the popular outfit that it used to be, its leadership feels it is owing to TMC's machinations. We are not given big auditoriums to stage plays depicting the problems plaguing the people, a senior leader of CPI(M)'s cultural front, Sudip Sengupta said.

So as improvisation we are organising short term duration street theatre about the present regime’s misdeeds, Sengupta elaborated. Come January 20, at Ranu Chaya Mancha, Academy of Fine Arts a protest programme of short plays and recitation interspersed with speeches will be delivered opposing the inauguration of the Ayodhya Ram temple on January 22, he added.

Gone are the days when the Left poll campaign drew crowds staging Dutt 's popular play "Dudhapner Nogori" or City of Nightmares. Admitting this Sengupta said that one has to move with the times.

Addressing the culture issue, the BJP is likely to bring in speakers whose connect with the film world is widely known. Jishnu Basu, a party ideologue pointed with Mithun Chakraborty campaigning for the saffron camp in 2021 Assembly elections and onmouthing dialogues from his films had thrown the TMC into a tizzy.

The saffron party may field several top actors from Hindi films. There is already an undercurrent of support for us who h can be whipped up by the campaigning of these crowd pullers to translate their presence into support for the BJP nominees in the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, Basu said. (IPA Service)