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Biz wiz at sea in political whirl
Madhumanti Sengupta, who gave up her Rs 60 lakh a year job to join murky world of politics, is cursing herself for having bitten the bait.
Madhumanti Sengupta, a top executive with a multinational, woke up one morning nine weeks ago at her plush Greater Kailash flat in Delhi to find a politician at her doorstep. He (she won't tell his name) offered her the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ticket from Midnapore. She accepted, gave up her Rs 60 lakh a year job as vice-president of the company’s South Asia unit, flew down to this violence-prone district and pitted herself against formidable opponents.
Today, Sengupta is totally at sea. Her month-long experience in the murky world of politics has left her disillusioned and cursing herself for having bitten the bait in New Delhi on March 4.
A graduate in Economics from Jadavpur University, the middle-aged svelte woman also holds a management degree, a diploma in computer science and is now studying law. She's also an accomplished dancer, but she rues it's now her party workers who're making her go around in circles. "I don't know what to do. There's nobody to guide me. Many of these people (the workers) take money from me and disappear," she complains.
She says she hasn't got a single penny from her party's coffers for campaigning and has been delving into her own accounts. Her ties with Midnapore are tenuous at best; she claims her father hailed from this district and, as a freedom fighter, spent many years behind bars at the Midnapore Jail.
But she has plans for Midnapore. She tells the handful who bother to listen to her that she wants to act as a catalyst for establishing job-oriented industries in this district. Ask her to be specific, and she says it's the biotechnology and IT sectors she's talking about.
Sengupta has little idea of the assembly segments that make up her constituency, has no idea of her campaign schedule and is ignorant of the issues that dog Midnapore. She shies away from speaking about her rivals — CPI's Prabodh Panda (the two-time MP from here) and the BJP's Rahul Sinha.
Her rivals have, expectedly, ignored her. Local politicians say she doesn't stand a chance. At best, with her striking good looks, Sengupta evokes curiosity.
