4. Paying BJP back in its own coin: Days of ‘decent’ politics is clearly dead. To fight BJP, parties need to wallow in the same muck, mock the BJP with the same aggression and intensity with which BJP leaders mock their opponents. Mamata Banerjee returned fire with fire, each blow with vicious blows of her own, jibe for jibe, polarization with polarization, violence with violence. Pundits would call it ‘killer instinct’. It paid off.
5. Size of crowds at rallies and roadshows are not conclusive: Huge crowds at the Prime Minister’s rallies and the Home Minister’s roadshows convinced many that the wind was blowing in favour of the BJP. They have turned out to be wrong. Even the Prime Minister waxed eloquently at the crowd at one of his rallies and acknowledged that he had never seen a crowd like that, mocking Banerjee that the game was over (Khela Shesh). The game had apparently just begun.
6. Most turncoats from TMC to BJP lost: Large number of defections from Trinamul Congress to the BJP ahead of the election were interpreted as rats deserting the sinking ship. Apparently, many of these sitting MLAs had been told that they would not be re-nominated because of their record. BJP, which did not have winnable local candidates in sufficient numbers, embraced them and fielded them as its candidates. Most of them have now lost despite the huge investment made in them by the BJP.
