Within days of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launching her public relation portals “Didi ke Bolo” (Tell Didi) and “Amar Gorbo Mamata” (Mamata My Pride) in an apparent bid to assuage popular feeling by reaching out to the masses, one of her key Ministers Subroto Mukherjee on Sunday said things could boomerang if not followed up scrupulously.
Mukherjee a senior leader known for not speaking out of turn and sans insinuations said “Didi ke Bolo is a good gesture to reach out to the masses and address popular issues but at the same time it is a risky move too because if you do not follow up and redress popular grievances then you will be in trouble.”
Apparently advised by election strategist Prashant Kishor — who is professionally directing the Trinamool Congress and Banerjee’s image-makeover drill — the TMC supremo had after much trumpet blast launched the portal Didi ke Bolo.com and a helpline where the people were asked to register their complaints to enable the Chief Minister to directly intervene and solve their problems.
In fact the nodal office at the State secretariat Nabanna, had received humungous response from the masses with thousands of complaints pouring in since the launch of Didi ke Bolo.
“A complaint not reaching the Chief Minister is one thing and the issue officially reaching her but not getting redressed immediately is another" said Mukherjee. “On one hand this strategy is full of possibilities for the Government to perform but on the other hand if this is not handled and followed up scrupulously then you are in for trouble as it will not take long for the popular faith in you to die down,” he said advising the Chief Minister to take care of the follow-up exercise.
“I will request the Chief Minister to take up and follow up each and every case to redress them otherwise things may boomerang,” the Minister said.
Mukherjee is credited with bringing Banerjee, a firebrand young leader into the Congress and fetching her a ticket to contest her first parliamentary elections from Jadavpur constituency whence she defeated the Marxist heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee to enter the lower house in mid-eighties.