Nothing is permanent like change. This is more so for politics.
By 2005, Mamata Banerjee was considered almost a has-been in Bengal politics, until Singur and Nandigram turned the tide.
2026 polls is mostly about West Bengal and Mamata Banerjee !!
Time is also the best drug.
Her ascent was driven by fiery grassroots opposition even getting manhandled by CPI-M goons and Marxist leaders calling her '420' and 'paagli (insane). But she capitalized on agrarian unrest in Singur and Nandigram and had achieved the near impossible of one time - ousted the Leftists.
In a country where politics has always been increasingly male-dominated and also dominated by dynasties, she was/is an outsider.
"It is not me, it is the people of Bengal. That I am a woman is not the issue. Without my sisters I cannot do my job but not without my brothers too," Mamata had said after 2011 election victory.
Has Mamata Banerjee been trapped into SIR-politics ?
How ?
West Bengal would now have only 6.4 crore voters, as stated by the CEC Gyanesh Kumar.
That means about one crore remain undecided.
Even in Bhowanipore, Mamata's constituency -- she lost sizable voters.
And her tragedy is she cannot say .. -- no poll till SIR is done... because then President's Rule may come.
In Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s own constituency of Bhowanipore, 47,111 voters have been deleted from the final rolls.
The significance is not lost. In 2021, Mamata had suffered a stunning defeat in Nandigram against Suvendu Adhikari — before winning a subsequent by-election in Bhowanipore to retain her assembly seat and her position as the Chief Minister.
CEC Gyanesh Kumar says, "The Election Commission of India is constitutionally bound by Article 326 to include electors who are above 18 years of age, who are citizens of India and who are staying in that assembly constituency to be in the electoral rolls. The Election Commission of India has been undertaking this responsibility in the form of Special Intensive Revision. With regard to the political statements by certain political leaders or political parties, the Commission does not wish to engage in such dialogues.
But much has changed about her and the state of West Bengal since then. She was seen as 'people's answer' to Left goondaism and autocracy of leaders like Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Biman Bose. But her 15 years in office shows she has undone the communists.
She has become the 'evil' and disastrous' images of the erstwhile Marxists' regime.
Mamata Banerjee, a law and history graduate from a lower-middle-class family who wore a traditional cotton sari with bathroom slippers today symbolises syndicate of lawlessness and corruption.
In more ways than one Mamata Banerjee is an accidental leader. But having said that and taken note of several coincidences punctuated with 'mistakes' of others; none can deny her the credit of hard work.
If gimmicks work in politics; she knew how to use that.
There came a time in West Bengal under hugely popular Jyoti Basu as the chief minister; Mamata would be on the spot in her hawai chappal (bathroom slippers) and cotton sari and a Santiniketan bag at every spot of any murder.
She would also successfully link those to the CPI-M's goondaism and the people easily bought that line.
Loved to be called Didi or at times Mamata Di; she was hailed by a section Bengali media as "Agni Kanya" --- "Fire Maiden" or "Girl of Fire".
The irony of all that lies in the fact that after few years of her days in power as the chief minister; senior journalists who probably called her Agni Kanya -- later denied having said so or maintained it was someone else who did it.
A feeling dawned that she never deserved such adjectives.
Nevertheless, she had big armies of admirers and still she is the most popular face of West Bengal politics.
The phrase Agni Kanya refers to a woman who radiates intense energy, transformation, and inner strength -- that she has been. But whether she deserved to be often likened to the purifying and intense nature of fire will be debated in years to come.
Jyoti Basu regime: Mamata Banerjee fractured her head in 1991 in an attacked by a CPI-M goon Lalu Alam. The incident took place at Hazra in south Kolkata when she was leading a Congress rally.
Note how a few coincidences changed her career and life too.
In 2009 and later 2011, her party's tie-up with the Congress – was in effect facilitated by the Prakash Karat's or Left’s tactically unwise withdrawal of support for the UPA in 2008.
This had granted Mamata Banerjee considerable clout.
In 2009 polls - two big-time miracles happened. Manmohan Singh could return as the Prime Minister and it marked the end of the political graph of L K Advani.
In West Bengal, the 2009 polls marked the great revival journey for TMC as Mamata's 19 MPs became crucial for the UPA.
And by 2011; the communists were ousted.
** Coincidence was while she won 1984 Lok Saha polls from Jadavpur against Somnath Chatterjee by not so big margin; in 1989 she lost the seat to a low profile professor Manini Bhattacharjee by a much bigger margin.
She never contested from Jadavpur again like she would probably never contest again from Nandigram - the seat she lost in 2021 to her onetime lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari.
*** In 1984; generally people attribute Indira Gandhi wave for Mamata's victory. The ground zero factor was a legal case. Two children were mercilessly killed in Kolkata those days and Somnath Chatterjee had appeared for Kolkata police trying to suggest those were accidental deaths.
This proved death-knell for Somnath babu as middle class Bengali Bhadrolok took him as an advocate of the devil.
After she floated Trinamool Congress along side Mukul Roy - who was actually first chairperson of the new party; Mamata had allied with the BJP for 1998 polls. The Lotus party got a sizeable toehold in communist bastion but TMC could pick up seven seats.
ends
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