“Mamata (Banerjee) ‘didi’ had said that she doesn’t know who Amit Shah is. I am Amit Shah. I am a minor office-bearer of BJP. You can do whatever you choose. I am here to uproot Trinamool Congress from Bengal.”
Through the above statement by Amit Shah at a huge gathering at Esplanade on Sunday, it seems that Amit Shah has started a countdown clock for 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal (WB). Narendra Modi’s man and his attitude is all set for BJPs win in WB. TMC might have never dreamt of getting a jolt from BJP instead of Congress and the Left. Meanwhile, an aggressive Trinamool Congress tried to duck under the bouncers hurled by Amit Shah against the party and their chief Mamata Banerjee. Surprisingly, there is no fitted reply from Banerjee or her party leaders to Amit Shah. I am sure, a lady like her will soon break out against BJP’s national chief. Anyway, a change is required for the transformation of the state and its time Bengal get its lost glory back. Just like Mamata rang the ‘Death Bell’ for Left government before ousting them. It seems that BJP rang the same bell for TMC and from the same place. West Bengal has seen a Chief Minister like Dr. Bidhan Chandra Ray who was committed to do development work for the state. He was the second Chief Minister of West Bengal. He remained in his post for 14 years as an Indian National Congress candidate, from 1948 until his death in 1962. He was a highly respected physician and a renowned freedom fighter. Bidhan Roy is often considered as the great architect. Roy brought unity and discipline amongst the party ranks. He then systematically and calmly began to work on the immense task. Within three years, law and order was returned to Bengal without compromising the dignity and status of his administration. State was always blessed with good leaders. After his death, nasty politics swallowed the political system of the state. No doubt, Mamata is a good leader but she failed on many fronts.
Banerjee has taken Bengal from the hands of Communist misrule. Employment generation is at a standstill because of her policies and goons. Now, her goons are killing industry executives and owners. Mamata herself comes to the streets to protest instead of governing. In 2011, Banerjee pulled off a landslide victory for the TMC-Congress alliance in West Bengal by defeating the 34-year old Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, until then the world’s longest-serving democratically-elected communist government. She opposed forceful land acquisition for industrialisation by the then communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of the “100 most influential People in the World”. In September 2012, Bloomberg Markets magazine listed her among the 50 most influential people in the world of finance. The impulsive TMC leader was voted in May 2013 as India’s most honest politician in an internal poll by members of India Against Corruption (IAC), India’s largest anti-corruption coalition.
In 1997, Mamata Banerjee left Congress Party in West Bengal and established the All India Trinamool Congress. It quickly became the primary opposition party to the long-standing Communist government in the state. On 11 December 1998, she controversially held the Samajwadi Party MP, Daroga Prasad Saroj, by the collar and dragged him out of the well of the Lok Sabha to prevent him from protesting against the Women’s Reservation Bill. In 1999, she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and was allocated the Railways Ministry. In early 2001, after the Tehelka expose, Banerjee walked out of the NDA cabinet and allied with the Congress Party for West Bengal’s 2001 elections, in protest of the corruption charges leveled by Tehelka against senior ministers of the Government of NDA. Again she returned to the NDA government in January 2004, and held the Coal and Mines portfolio till the ‘General Election’ in May 2004, in which she was the only Trinamool Congress member to win a Parliament seat from West Bengal.
She has made wrong decisions due to which her state had suffered. No big industrial investments in the state have happened during her tenure. She promised that she will make Kolkata like London, but forget London, she has failed to solve basic problem of traffic and hawkers’ encroachments in the state capital. Recently, her party was hit by Saradha Scam, filthy Teesta river water dispute with Bangladesh, and ‘too much’ appeasement politics has also hit her. Law and Order problem in the state is known to all. Her party leader’s derogatory comments are also putting ‘ghee’ in the fire. Saradha Scam and Burdwan blast are also hitting TMC below the belt . When she became CM of West Bengal, people had expectations from her. However, now citizens think she has become CM for herself.
The election season has opened up in WB and insecurity is looming over Mamata ‘didi’. It’s time to roll the dice in Modi’s favour from all possible quarters. Embroiling in one controversy after the other – graft cases and terror links to cite a few – Didi is in the news for all the wrong reasons. After four years of Mamata’s rule, West Bengal is stuck where it was earlier. Screaming at the top of the voice or sitting on unreasonable dharnas doesn’t make you an able politician. This is high time, West Bengal needs change.
