Mamata's penchant for overdoing things is drawing criticism. Practising minoritism in the name of ‘secularism’ has shoved many of her Hindu admirers towards the resurgent BJP
Power corrupts man ... absolute power corrupts absolutely...
If one has to go by the findings of the Enforcement Directorate currently probing the Saradha scam — and the role of the ruling Trinamool Congress in abating the multi-crore rip-off — lord Acton’s truth-seeking prophecy would stand corrected.
Early this month your writer was travelling in North Bengal on election duty. At Dabgram-Phulbari in Darjeeling district, one chanced upon Hanuman Taanti, a tea worker and a Trinamool Congress activist. He looked sombre because “this lady has written the elegy of her own empire. Her fall is a foregone conclusion!” His immediate point of reference was Mamata Banerjee.
Cut to the Calcutta High Court. Arunabha Ghosh, a renowned advocate and Congress leader, rued the fact that “Mamata Banerjee is the biggest asset and the most dangerous liability for her party.”
The two opinions tone in with each other if not in articulation then at least in substance. Notwithstanding her party’s “stupendous” win in last year’s panchayat elections and its alleged iron grip over the villages (where the terrorised Opposition members who have not fled their homes or got eliminated yet have hung up their boots), the excitement in the air is not about when Didi will go but who will fill the void.
A veteran TMC leader with his unquestioned psephological attributes privately puts the expected Trinamool Congress’ tally in the elections to below 18 seats as against the party’s drummed up claim of 30-35 seats. His hushed opinion came a fortnight before the Finance Ministry set the ED cat among Trinamool pigeons.
The ED has in a matter of one week dug out “disturbing connections” between the bank accounts of jailed Saradha chief Sudipto Sen and a galaxy of Trinamool high-ups, including Ministers and MPs, causing a huge political ripple in the middle of election season. It is another matter, however, that Didi dismisses the ED success as a “Congress’ electoral ploy to finish us as we refused to team up with the party.”
Secret reports prepared by the police intelligence have also matched the stated Trinamool leader’s poll prediction in terms of seats. The alleged IB report gives 18 seats to the ruling outfit. No wonder why the Chief Minister has postponed her programmes in North and Western India; no wonder why bloody attacks on Opposition members in interior areas have multiplied.
Mamata Banerjee’s spectacular rise after the Singur and Nandigram movements is not entirely credited to her so-called leftist revolutionary character that she is said to have usurped from the Marxists but also to Prakash Karat’s off-the-wall political strategy and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s weak-kneed administrative skills that were apparent during Mamata’s militant movement against the Nano car plant.
Karat’s withdrawal from the UPA-I pushed the Congress towards Mamata, and cost the left Front its strongest citadel in Bengal. Mamata reaped a bumper harvest with additional 8-10 seats in 2009 lok Sabha elections and about 60-plus seats in 2011 State polls.
In scores of seats, victory margin was between 150 and 4,500 votes. Remember there is hardly an Assembly segment in India where the Congress does not have 5,000 votes. Her politics was excellent. The Congress did not gain from its alliance with Mamata, while the left lost their Red fortress as the rural society rejected their revisionist ideas.
Basking in her newly acquired leftist credentials, Mamata’s popularity had peaked by the early 2013 or more specifically till the Saradha scam exploded in her face. It is clear that voters refused to scrutinise her past affiliations. They ignored her previous three-decade bedfellowship with the large landed interests and dismissed with contempt the Marxist clamour against her “pseudo-leftist” posturing.
At the end of three years, Mamata may still be ruling the roost in Bengal, but her popularity graph is falling faster than that of the left. From the Saradha scam to trident light case; from teachers’ appointment fraud to Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority scam; her Governments have a plethora of cheating cases under its belt today. lumpen elements in the party have given additional fodder in the Opposition hands.
It does not, however, give any credible footage to show that the Marxists are gaining at Mamata’s cost. Rather the BJP is making maximum out of the political melee.
The Chief Minister’s lofty claims apart, there is an undercurrent of discontent among electorates and apprehension among Trinamool workers. The apprehension has led to defiance and the leadership is resorting to terror tactic a la the Marxists in the last one decade of their rule.
To go by a statement of former Union Minister Saugata Roy, who told a party meeting: “Tell the agitating CPI(M) workers not to shout more. Tell them that the BSF and CRPF would not be there in the lanes and bylanes.” Even the Chief Minister has loudly backed party strongmen like Anubrata Mandal of Birbhum who openly directed his men to torch the Opposition houses and bomb police vehicles.
The recession in Trinamool’s popularity graph can be assessed by the votes it secured in the panchayat elections. Though the Trinamool won more than 7,000 seats unopposed and did “extremely well” in the rural polls, the ruling outfit failed to increase its overall lead over the Marxists despite complaints of large-scale violence.
While the rulers got 1.53 crore votes, the left got 1.33 crore. A difference of 20 lakh distributed in 42 constituencies is peanuts and can be overwhelmed in days if the Election Commission can ensure a free and fair election, said CPI(M) leader Gautam Deb.
The reasons behind the disenchantment for Mamata’s Poribortan that never was are will be visible soon. Mamata’s eccentricity, her penchant for overdoing things, is drawing criticism. For instance, practising minoritism in the name of “secularism” has shoved away many of her Hindu admirers towards the resurgent BJP — a phenomenon that is now showing through a steady rise in the saffron party’s vote percentage which could
even touch 20 per cent mark these polls.
Secondly, staggering differential between high commitments and low execution rate is too apparent to cover with white lies that Mamata has sold all these years to woo voters. She is herself to blame for failure to deliver on her promises made to win 2011 elections. For instance, her Gorkhaland accord failed to solve Darjeeling tangle. Down south though there is apparent peace in Jangalmahal, the police cannot handle the
situation on its own sans Central forces.
Industry is not happening and Bengal has slipped from 3rd position to 11th in terms of investment in the past three years or so.
Failing law and order situation, a steep rise in atrocities against women is another issue that the people are taking into account before the polls. Bengal is No. 1 in rape and No. 2 in overall atrocities against women.
Alleged involvement of Trinamool workers in serious crimes like rape, murder and extortion and Mamata’s sustained refrain that the Opposition is concocting charges to malign her government has not gone down well with the people. “From Park Street to Kamduni to Kharjuna — and the list would not end — the role of the Chief Minister, who is also the Police Minister, to curb rapes have been dismal,” rues Rahul Sinha, State BJP president.
More the Opposition has upped the ante, more they have met strong rebuttal from a self-righteous Chief Minister. This anomaly showed in her repeated appearance in public meetings with Anubrata Mandal.
Mamata has ended up rubbing all her opponents the wrong way. She failed to draw a hedge between political attack and personal vendetta. The upshot: She is left with no ally today. The 19-party alliance that pulled down the Marxist regime is today rendered into a one-party dictatorship of sorts.
Return to the catapult of corruption. The recent findings of the ED in the Rs 20,000 core Saradha scam tends to establish the Opposition theory that the Trinamool used the chit fund route to power.
While the Opposition parties constantly pointed at the weird coincidence of their meteoric rise, leads found by the ED suggest a close camaraderie between Trinamool and Saradha groups between 2009 and 2013 when the Ponzi group crashed.
In its initial phases, Saradha not only provided funds to the Trinamool but also supplied lakhs of agents, who doubled up as party workers, says Sujan Chakrabarty, former CPI(M) MP. “These people are eagerly waiting for the election date.”
But when the group crashed, these agents and their 20 lakh depositors turned doubly hostile. “Most of the deposits were utilised to fight elections and fill Trinamool leaders’ pockets,” says Gautam Deb, who was among the first to blow the chit fund whistle in 2011, adding, “the question is not whether these leaders would go to jail but how soon they would go to jail.” Whether or not, the election results would say.
(The writer is Special Correspondent, The Pioneer)