E-Paper
Boons that Mamata Banerjee is likely to seek from the Devi
Every year, she inaugurates dozens of community pujas.
Though chief ministers such as Prafulla Ghosh, Prafulla Sen, Bidhan Chandra Roy, Ajay Mukherjee and Siddhartha Shankar Roy administered Bengal in far more trying circumstances and had far more reasons to seek divine blessings, none of them ever promoted Durga Puja with as much gusto as Mamata Banerjee continues to do. Every year, she inaugurates dozens of community pujas and even lends her hand in decking up the idols. But this year is special -- she is riding the crest of her career and has herself emerged as the undisputed political devi of Bengal. Every evening she is tweeting pictures of herself inaugurating pujas all over the city.
Yet, going forward Didi may need divine blessings to tide over current problems and create opportunities. A look at the 10 items on the wish list of the chief minister.
1. Singur-style agitation for reclamation of land taken for industrial/infrastructure purpose but left unused. There are early sings of green shoots of such an agitation spreading in some parts of the state as was evident recently in E M Bypass and Birbhum. There are many tracts of land that were acquired for industry and industrial projects but that are yet to fructify, and they may be emboldened by the supreme court verdict to return the land since the project was never completed. While that gave the chief minter the victory of her life, she is likely to see nightmares if the demand spreads in the state, despite the severely injure opposition not in a position to utilise it to fan discontent against her. Mamata Banerjee is likely to ask for divine intervention so that the virus doesn’t spread.
2. The Centre goes out of its way to grant fiscal relief to debt-stressed Bengal. This, without doubt, is Didi’s worst administrative nightmare. She inherited a debt close to Rs 2 lakh crore and her own government has pumped it up to Rs 3.34 lakh crore in merely six years. The net result -- she has to fork out about Rs 30,000 crore every year as interest on loans leaving almost nothing for development work. To make matters worse, principal payments of a few tranches will begin from next year that can throw her from the frying pan to the fire. Didi is certain to beg the goddess earnestly to make the Centre more sympathetic to her pleas for an interest moratorium and rescheduling of debts.
3. Trinamool can extend its footprint outside Bengal. In the first week of September, Trinamool Congress was granted the recognition as a national party -- the seventh in the country. While this added another feather to the cap of Mamata Banerjee, it also unveiled a new chapter of challenge for her, and that is to extend her party to different parts of the country. Insiders say she has the hindi heartland as on her priority list, and that may be an uphill task where she needs to focus right now to register even a token presence in the UP elections next year.
4. Her image as the messiah for the farmers spreads fast across the land after the supreme court verdict on Singur. With BJP’s image of a party that is more pro-investor than pro-farmer and Congress showing no sings of revival, Mamata Banerjee is really hoping hard that the political ground is fertile for her image as a friend of the farmers to strike roots. The supreme court verdict on the Singur land to be returned to the farmers is one of the most significant judgements of recent times and the Bengal chief minister can ride it to emerge as a champion of farmer rights all over the country -- a political plank that will help her to take a quantum leap on the national stage. And this is a position that gels well with her populist brand of politics in general.
5. That IS/JMB or other terror elements don’t sneak in through the Bengal-Bangladesh border. The Bengal chief minister had one of her biggest moments of embarrassments when in its chargesheet in the Burdwan blast incident, NIA wrote JMB terror elements from Bangladesh almost enjoyed a free run in districts such as Burdwan, Birbhum and Nadia and set up an elaborate network of recruitment of jihadis, their indoctrination and even arms training. They spread right under the noses of the state government that had no idea of the run of the virus. With a porous border and complete similarity with the food, language, clothes and custom of people on either side of the Bengal-Bangladesh border, the chief minister actually needs an overdrive of divine intervention to stop infiltration. Ironically, the Burdwan blast took place on Astami of 2014 Durga Puja.
6. Investors come rushing to Bengal with pots of money. Going by the records, even the gods may find this assignment challenging. While Singur has ushered in immense political blessings for the chief minister, it has created an anti-investor image that she is finding extremely tough to break. While this image coupled with the absence of large tracts of land has made it difficult for big ticket investments, the SMEs that the chief minister is trying to promote aggressively, is not easy to come by. But she knows it only too well that he brand of populist politics will carry her only till an extent that is needed for the electorate to forget the bitterness of the Left rule, and beyond that people will start asking where are the jobs for the youth, not to speak of the revenue that will accrue to the near-empty coffers.
7. The Third Front takes shape next year. On May 26, the day she took oath for the second time, Mamata Banerjee made it clear that she wants a non-BJP non-Congress front to take a shot at the power in the Centre in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. She said it on a day when Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Farooq Abdullah, Kanimozhi were present. She said she will like to help the formation of a new front. Though Mamata Banerjee said she will prefer to remain in Bengal, her party seniors maintain that she wants to be a front ranking face of such a front that can hope to replace the BJP government at the Centre. Given the diverse nature of the faces in such a front, Didi will need lots of divine luck to catalyse such an alliance.
8. Abhisekh matures fast and finds acceptance in the party as a leader so that she can focus on matters beyond Bengal. Though Bengal has helped the woman from a humble lower middle class family to fight her way to the top, Didi knows that preoccupation with the state can become a constraint if future when the calling may be to grow beyond the state. But the second phase in her political career substantially rests on whether she can groom her next generation of leader on whom she can hand over the matters of Bengal. Her nephew Abhisekh Banerjee is the obvious choice as a number two, but then his age -- only 29 -- is an impediment to him being accepted by senior leaders of the party. But unless Abhisekh can take over some of her responsibilities, Mamata Banerjee will remain shackled to Bengal, a frightening possibility who is sniffing an active and growing role beyond her state.
9. Her party leaders don’t get caught in another Saradha/Narada and another flyover doesn’t come crashing. Saradha is dead, Narada has lost its sting and the flyover is almost a forgotten issue. Though none of these moments of shame had their electoral impact, the chief minister knows that they will be recorded in inglorious terms when the history of the state and that of her party will be written. After the landslide electoral victory in May 2016, the chief minister has rediscovered the virtues of probity for her party leaders and has emphasised it time and again publicly that she wants a clean party and even punished a few of its local leaders for corruption. This will be one fond wish on Didi’s lips before the goddess that she gives good sense to Trinamool leaders to stay clean in their dealings.
10. Her minority votebank remains intact. Every political pundit of Bengal thinks in 2011 the minorities helped her to uproot the Left. In 2016, they stood by her in larger numbers. The Bengal chief minister has weathered many criticisms to go out of her way to woo the minorities. After the Congress-Left alliance, many felt that both the camps will wean away their traditional minority loyalists, but the results proved otherwise. If the minorities stay with her -- officially they constitute about 27% of the state’s population -- Didi can be certain of her continuation in power.
Postscript: The Bengal chief minister needs no divine help in tackling political opposition. Mahisashur is enough to finish off whatever is left of it.
