Didi reigns supreme with little mamata

It’s been more than a year since Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee ended the three-decade-old rule of CPM and occupied the chief minister’s chair at Writers’ Building.
The firebrand leader rode the crest of anti-incumbency wave, powered by her ‘ma, mati, manush’ campaign: the communist government’s heavy-handed land acquisition made her victory easier.
If one were to judge the CM by the state of affairs during her rule, Didi, as she is popularly known, presents a disturbing picture.
Trinamool numbers are crucial to the survival of the Union government, and Mamata has never missed an opportunity to assert herself — though it might not be exactly in the interest of the nation.
She threw spanner in the works on crucial policies like FDI in retail and National Counter-terrorism Centre and even managed to derail an important river water treaty with Bangladesh. While her populist stance may win her applause from the masses, the damage that is being done will be hard to undo.
Like any leader who is dependent solely on personality cult, Mamata has shown extreme paranoia when it comes to facing criticism. Her conspiracy theories are ludicrous and at times would make one doubt the mental stability of the chief minister.
For all her rhetoric about the empty state coffers and the ultimatum to the Centre to provide a bailout package, the chief minister ordered all government structures to be painted light blue — it doesn’t take rocket science to understand the colossal waste of money.
Fires, rapes, baby deaths, train accidents and failures of governance are attributed to CPM-sponsored conspiracies ‘to tarnish the paribortan (change)’ she has ushered in. So far she has not suspected aliens, thank goodness! The much-hyped ‘surprise visits’ to check public amenities and open criticism of officials concerned has not changed much for the people.
When cornered over failures of the government, especially on law and order, she goes into a denial mode and lashes out at critics. When the story of a mother-of-two who was raped near a night club was highlighted by the media, the CM dismissed it off as another conspiracy — her minister went a step further to question the moral fabric of the victim.
Later, a diligent IPS officer who cracked the case and arrested the suspects, and therefore proving the chief minister wrong, was shunted out to an insignificant administrative post.
In a reminder of Emergency-era censorship, a professor was arrested for circulating a cartoon lampooning Mamata and Trinamool leaders. And, in a literal blacking out of criticism, the CM has ordered removal of English dailies from state libraries.
Even schools have not been spared. The history text books will be dropping sections about Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to ‘correct the imbalance’. A basic understanding of history would have told the firebrand CM that she is not the first one to try this route (and fail).
The ally has now become a burden for the UPA government. She forced senior party leader Dinesh Trivedi to quit as railway minister because he defied her diktat and used common sense to hike passenger fares. Every time she forces the Centre to backtrack on a key policy, it is the credibility of the government that goes for a toss.
After yesterday’s civic poll victory, the Trinamool has made it clear that it doesn’t need the junior partner’s support anymore — more bad news for the already humiliated and marginalised state Congress. West Bengal definitely needs change, and for this the chief minister must rise above her self-obsession and put the state’s interest first.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on June 6, 2012)

Testing times ahead for Congress

It has taken a series of electoral debacles to shake India’s Grand Old Party, the Congress, from its political slumber of denial mode and complacence.
Despite cross-country hut hopping by the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi and charm offensive by his sister Priyanka, the voters chose to bring non-Congress alliances to power.
The emphatic defeat for the 127-year-old party has been in the national capital, where the BJP swept to power in the local body elections.
Long has the era passed when the public tended to forgive and forget or get swayed by the personal charisma of Congress leaders. Uttar Pradesh voters refused to buy the ‘yuvraj’s’ charm offensive of mingling with the crowds and dining at Dalit huts.
For all the efforts that Rahul put in, the party was reduced to the fourth place after SP, BSP and BJP. Even the last-moment marriage of convenience with the RLD failed to draw the caste votes to the party.
Another area where the party keeps getting beaten black and blue is its alliances with regional parties — the most glaring example being that with West Bengal. Stuck with Mamata for meeting the magic numbers in Lok Sabha, the Congress is constantly humiliated without ‘mamta’ at the Centre and state.
She blocked a river water sharing deal with Bangladesh, got a sensible Railway minister sacked, is blocking several key policies in segments such as FDI and counter-terrorism. The latest whimsical threat was a 15-day deadline to the Centre to waive the state’s debt to the tune of Rs22,000 crore.
In Tamil Nadu too, the picture is not much different. The Centre’s hands are tied on ties with Sri Lanka owing to pressure from the state’s two major parties, the DMK and the AIADMK.
The Congress is perceived as weak because of its failure to get even the UPA allies on board regarding key policies. Key areas such as legal reforms, disinvestment, FDI, counter-terrorism, anti-graft law and police reforms have been languishing without policy commitments.
The constant announcements of new policies and subsequent volte-face due to pressure from allies have hit the credibility of the party. Massive cases of fraud at the Centre running into lakhs of crores of rupees have definitely put the party on the back foot.
When senior party leader and telecom minister Kapil Sibal said the loss to the government in 2G spectrum auction was ‘zero’, whereas the CAG put it at Rs1.76 lakh crore, it came as a shock even to the Opposition.
Maybe the firebrand Supreme Court lawyer has forgotten that gone are the days when an elephant in the room would not be seen by the public.
The infighting in state units and lack of party discipline has left the party in a lurch. While loose cannons like Digvijay Singh go on the warpath firing salvos at anything that moves and manages to capture his fancy, senior leadership is forced to do the damage control.
The party’s inability to make its leaders toe its line is threatening the survival of its government in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress has been forced to swallow its pride and take the help of its rivals in Parliament to suspend eight of its MPs from Parliament as they refused to obey party directives and stalled the House demanding for a separate Telangana state.
An organisation is usually able to tide over crises when there is clarity regarding leadership and a vision for the future. In the case of Congress, there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding leadership. With the scion Rahul failing to sway votes and shying away from any executive post, the focus has shifted to Priyanka.
However, Congress president Sonia Gandhi hasn’t cleared the air about who is going to take over the party reins. For all the reform and internal democracy Rahul has been championing, the party is still practicing nepotism and favouritism in selecting its low- and middle-rung leaders — and the lack of quality is showing in its poll performances.
India’s oldest party has a Herculean task of cleaning its Augean Stables. If it fails to put its house in order, it will share the fate of several dynasties that had their share of glory before becoming extinct.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on April 25, 2012)