Jayalalithaa and Mamata may have to wake

The tone and tenor of recent stump speeches by two chief ministers, West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu's J Jayalalithaa, suggest Narendra Modi may have had an unanticipated impact on the electorate of those states. Modi's impact is unlikely to have come from a new found interest in Hindutva. In all probability debates about development have served to spark interest in Modi, which is not a bad thing for the two states.Both states need more political contestation as there is little to differentiate between leading parties in terms of policy planks. Modi may turn out to be the catalyst in generating a useful debate on the economic challenges the two states face.
Jayalalithaa, who spearheads AIADMK's election campaign, is believed to have good personal rapport with Narendra Modi. Her state can be considered Gujarat's peer if economic and social development indicators have to be compared. It is Tamil Nadu's economy which needs some fixing. The period between 2005 and 2010 was a bad one for Indian manufacturing, which shed 5.03 million jobs in the sector. Tamil Nadu accounted for almost 20% of these job losses. Manufacturing in Tamil Nadu has been adversely impacted by power shortages, and neither AIADMK nor preceding DMK governments have measured up to the challenge.
In terms of her economic approach, Mamata Banerjee is not that different from the Left Front which administered the state for over three decades. Till date, there is not much evidence that her impact on West Bengal's economy is going to be any different. There is growing frustration in urban West Bengal about tardy progress in generating jobs. Neither is the Left Front in a position to provide an alternative to Trinamool Congress.
Beyond economics, Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee are also fighting perception battles. AIADMK has already lost support of a Muslim outfit, which was unhappy with Jayalalithaa's early tepid attacks on BJP. For a prime ministerial aspirant, it must be galling to be snidely referred to by opponents as 'BJP's B team.' In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has successfully weaned away a large segment of Muslims from the Left Front. She is unlikely to jeopardise this advantage. The BJP-led NDA may not capture many seats in the two states. But it has shaken up politics in both of them and thereby done them some good.