It’s six months after that sweltering summer day in May, when Mamata Banerjee became the first non-Left chief minister of Bengal in 35 years. Six months after her triumph, there are worrying signs that Mamata the chief minister might not live up to the potential of Didi who demolished the Left.
On the night of Saturday, November 5, Didi marched into a police station in Bhowanipore, south Kolkata, to order the release of a handful of her supporters from jail. These people were part of a mob which was playing very loud music and bursting crackers on the road in front of Kolkata’s main cancer hospital. When local police intervened to clear the road and stop the music, they were beaten. After a few troublemakers were locked up tensions escalated, with the chief minister’s brother picking up the cudgels on behalf of the goons. At least 12 policemen were injured in the scuffle. Finally Banerjee, who lives close by, turned up to tame the mob and set her rowdies free. The police filed no charges. Mamata’s supporters claim that she had to intervene because the incident occurred two days before Bakr Eid and urban development minister Firhad ‘Bobby’ Hakim, who Didi had sent to see what the ruckus what all about, suggested that it could take an ugly communal turn. Thus, it was inevitable that Didi would step in to rescue her goons. Really?
Has Mamata forgotten that she’s the chief minister of a state and the police are part of the establishment that she has to stabilize and run? By stepping into the fray on behalf of the goons, Banerjee eroded the credibility of the police. Her duty as chief minister is to enforce rule of law in Bengal, not strengthen the hands of goons. If Trinamool thugs can run amok with the blessings of the chief minister, civil society will be replaced by the rule of mobs. Mamata came to power deeply suspicious of the state and its various arms.
This fear was rational: after all the Left had permeated every nook and cranny of public life in Bengal, politicising the bureaucracy, police, teachers and even bus and auto drivers collectives. She put trusted people, many of them ex-babus and policemen who had joined her party and got elected, in key positions. But even that doesn’t seem to have eased her sense of insecurity: when a phone call to a senior cop would have sufficed, she chose to march to the thana in person.
The Trinamool doesn’t have spokesmen. Didi does most of the talking. And only Didi speaks on behalf of her government today. Asked recently about infant deaths in hospitals, Didi said she wasn’t doing health at that particular moment, she was doing industry. Mamata has inherited empty coffers. Her sole strategy to fill it is to ask New Delhi to write off Bengal’s debts, which totaled a staggering near-Rs 200,000 crore around the time of elections. And the number is speculative: few people, with the possible exception of finance minister Amit Mitra know how badly Bengal is broke.
A proper budget hasn’t been presented to the Assembly yet. All expenses are funded after votes on account. Mitra, a rookie politician who went from corporate lobbyist to the finance minister’s chair in Bengal, might not be fully aware himself. He should rope in his predecessor Asim Dasgupta, the Left’s economist-finance minister to unearth the real scale of Bengal’s bankruptcy. Even after a Central bailout takes place, Mamata might find it tough to live with its consequences. Belt tightening and higher taxes are prescribed for states in dire straits. But Didi doesn’t do taxes: she’s responded to fuel price hikes by cutting fuel taxes in Bengal. Everyone knew that reviving Bengal would be hard work. But it’ll be a tragedy if Mamata lets her quirks and caprices make a tough job even tougher.
- Abheek Barman
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