West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have courted controversy over her claims of a PhD degree, but she is now the subject of a thesis by a man who, impressed by her leadership, is pursuing a doctorate on her.
Inspired by Banerjee’s charismatic leadership and captivating power, Rezaul Islam Mollah, 25, is doing his PhD on her from the Vidyasagar University, Midnapore. Mollah is a resident of Hatitota village in Burdwan district. “Irrespective of everything that was being said about her. I have followed my passion. I want to study her life, the enigmatic power she possess and her indomitable spirit to rise from the doldrums to pinnacles of success,” says Mollah.
Though the people keep on asking him about his “unusual subject” nothing prevents him from pursuing it. “As a child I saw how she stood up for the rights of poor and oppressed. When political goons were troubling my family and neighbours she stood by us.”
Incidentally, Banerjee’s own PhD degree was challenged by many of her opponents on the ground that she became a doctorate from a University, which allegedly did not exist. Subsequently, her followers stopped referring to her as Dr Mamata Banerjee.
His project has been approved by the University Grants Commission and senior scholars at Vidyasagar University are also waiting eagerly for the “end product” so to say said a senior official of the University.
“The Chief Minister’s managerial skills are exquisite though she is a law graduate and not a management graduate,” says Mollah himself possessing a PG degree in management studies.
“Her way of handling vexed political issues and ability to bounce back from adverse situations is a subject of research,” he says pointing at her skillful handling of Singur and Nandigram movements to transform her Trinamool Congress from a one-MP party to an outfit that has now 34 MPs in lok Sabha.