Mamata Banerjee adresses a public rally in West Bengal.
It happened last year. Passengers on an Air India flight from Delhi were waiting in a drizzle for ferry buses at the Dum Dum airport. Among them was a visibly irritated Mamata Banerjee.
Suddenly, the Railway Minister picked up her rubber slippers and started walking towards the terminal. "Walk, don't wait for things to happen," she said, loudly. Everyone followed. After 34 years, things are happening in Bengal and she has made them happen. Her campaign against the Marxist-led Left Front began over two decades ago.
The state witnessed various mercurial shades of the Trinamool president, ranging from sit-ins at Kolkata's crowded crossroads at peak office hours to rallies and hunger strikes across the state. Now in the summer of 2011, the 56-year-old firebrand leader is on the verge of realising her biggest ambition. Her battle cry ofMa, Maati, Manush (mother, earth and people) is resonating even with the rural masses, once the bulwark of the Left Front, and helped the coalition win seven consecutive elections.
We felt the first signs of change in the 2009 Parliamentary elections when we won 19 of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress won six and our tally was 25," says minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi and TMC Rajya Sabha MP.
It was dramatic, considering the party had won just one seat (Mamata herself, from South Kolkata) in 2004. "Last year's Kolkata Corporation elections provided us the momentum." Trivedi agrees that if the TMC wins, the party must pay heed to some of the core reasons for the Left's demise. "Quality governance should be high on our agenda."
If this daughter of a school teacher succeeds, the short-tempered Mamata will join the bandwagon of regional leaders whose successes are reshaping the country's ever-changing political landscape. From her humble Kalighat residence, which flanks a reeking, open sewage drain, Mamata has her task cut out: she has to dislodge one of the most entrenched political machines in the world.
A restive crowd lounges around in plastic chairs and as the time of her daily appearance approaches, most stand. Policemen form a human chain. Some want nominations, some favours and some wait around for a quote or a sound byte. Two women, who timidly ask Mamata's secretary for police protection against a family dispute, are sternly turned away.There are others; a family of three women from Behala wait endlessly for her. They ask around, "Does she come out? Can we see her? Will she talk to us?" The three skipped the customary visit to the adjacent temple to worship goddess Kali because it was closed. "But maybe we can see the other one," said one, grinning.
Her fan list is growing: Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia will push her e-agenda with help from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) interns. Bengali film stars and Amit Mitra, a powerful Delhi lobbyist, are all keen to fight elections for Bengal's biggest change agent. "Our vision is in our slogan, Shokolaer jonno kaaj chai, shokolaer paetey bhaat chai (We want employment and food for all)," says Madan Mitra, TMC secretary.
To win Bengal, Mamata wants to get a complete grip on three factors: land, gun and Muslims. The Left Front's mishandling of the Sachar Committee Report highlighting the abysmal state of Muslims in the state has enabled her to seek the support of the community that forms more than a quarter of Bengal's population.
TMC's connect with the Muslims has been further bolstered by its success in bloody fracas over land acquisition Muslim-dominated Singur and Nandigram.
The alleged suicide of computer teacher Rizwanur Rahman in 2007 and the link between police and businessman Ashok Todi-Rahman married Todi's daughter-angered the minority community. Mamata struck an immediate chord by visiting the family and fielding Rahman's brother, Rukbanur, for the Corporation elections. Known to consult Muslim clerics, she received a promise of support at the Furfura Sharif, the most important pilgrimage for Muslims in West Bengal, in April 2010. TMC also backed the RJD and Samajwadi Party's demand for salaries for imams.
Pushed into a corner, the Left Front this time played safe, refusing ticket to one of its trusted Nandigram loyalists and mafia don, Lakshman Seth. Instead, it added 57 Muslims to its recently released list.
TMC is also focussed on land, always at the heart of politics in West Bengal. It brought the Left Front into power and helped retain it for 34 years. Ironically, it's the same land issue that could trigger the Red Brigade's downfall. In 1978, the CPM's 'Operation Barga' facilitated legitimate land titles to sharecroppers. After 28 years in 2006, Mamata's indefinite hunger strike against land acquisition for Tata's Nano project lasted for 25 days and made her the harbinger of a new land reform movement.
Even the former chief minister, Jyoti Basu, realised Mamata's meteoric rise. Worried about the health of a fasting Mamata, Basu once told a senior TMC functionary at his home: "Tell Mamata to stay fit to fight bigger battles later." Basu meant Mamata was on the right track. In 2007, when the Left Front announced a chemical hub by the Salim Group in Nandigram, the state began to boil. On March 14, 2007, the police firing on farmers set the stage for the tmc supremo to solidify her hold on the land issue. It was in Nandigram where Banerjee reportedly used the tacit support of the Maoists to confront the Left cadres in armed combat.
In Kolkata, a large chunk of mercenaries who once worked for the Left Front have shifted base to work for TMC. "She is armed to the teeth," says former TMC member Nirbed Roy. In some ways, it showed her party's grip on vast tracts of North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah, West Midnapore and parts of Bankura and Purulia. For the last two years, more than 1,000 have died in violent clashes between supporters of TMC and the Left Front.
Netai village in Bengal witnessed cold-blooded killings when on January 7, nine people were shot dead and at least 17 injured in firing allegedly triggered by people sheltered in an armed camp run by the states ruling Left Front major CPM.
"People do want vengeance. Mamata's speeches might not be logical but they distribute hatred well," says Roy of Mamata. Explaining how she does it, Roy says, "She plays very aggressively on dead bodies. Someone dies and she gets the dead body to the agitation. Whichever way the Left has gone, hatred and violence, she has gone exactly the same way. They are two sides of the same coin."
Coming from a humble background, Mamata has been at the receiving end of violence and attacks on her life in her nascent political career. Some believe she is the victim of a deep rooted inferiority complex, which has now successfully transformed into a vengeful superiority complex.
Mamata started when the Left began losing grip. Floundering with a diminished moral stand in the 90s, the Left was grappling to find a sound alternative to economic reforms and brewing rural unrest. Almost at the same time, a young Mamata took to the streets on July 21, 1991 and was fired upon, setting her up as a possible opposition champion.
The signs that the extraordinary rule of the Left had been pushed over the brink were telling. Four major non-cpm peasant movements between 2006 and 2009 happened in Singur, Bhangor, Nandigram and Katwa. The CPM also lost 22 Lok Sabha seats out of 24 on the two sides of the river, which probably is a microcosm of what was happening in the state.
The river banks, which heave with dense population and enjoy highly fertile alluvial soil, are mostly reserved constituencies.
If there is anything that the unpredictable and impatient Mamata has been consistent at, it's her hatred towards the Left. She consistently refused to share a platform with the Left or discuss any truce. She blames the chief minister for not honouring a settlement in Singur. She used it as a moral high road and turned it into a virtue.
The intense anti-incumbent sentiment also suffers from tunnel vision. Insiders say that almost everyone wants to see the Left gone without caring who will replace it. Mamata's unwavering attack on the Left for more than 25 years has ensured that she is the next choice, in the absence of any other credible opposition.
In the process, Mamata is also trying hard to change her anti-corporate image. Last year, she invited Kolkata's corporate captains for a scrumptious pre-Diwali dinner-a foolproof plan to popularise her new avatar. "These meetings are ice-breakers but apprehensions surrounding the business clime will take some time to go away," says Rahul Todi, Managing Director, Bengal Shrachi Housing Development. Agrees economist Dipankar Dasgupta: "Without industry on her side, Mamata knew that her popularity wouldn't last for long. She sent a positive message (through the dinner)."
But her rivals say it will not work. A nearly full school compound in drizzling rain welcomed the CPM election rally in Amdanga, North 24 Parganas. Housing minister Gautam Deb greets the crowd with humility, saying the party has rectified its mistakes, made changes and thrown out people who had given grief to the people of Bengal.
The panic in the incumbent party is apparent. For the first time, the Left Front has commissioned a study to explore ground-level perceptions and constituencies where swing votes will be critical. Mamata, considered the present saviour of Bengal, wants to take full advantage of the Left panic. She is controlling everything herself, wielding an iron hand over her party. "She trusts people who are extremely subservient," says Roy.While she retains a loyal coterie, the last decision is hers. TMC MP Kabir Suman has sparred with her and has been banished to the fence. Her traits have cast shadows on how good an administrator she would make.
The RBI says between 1990-2009, Bengal's per capita industrial produce stagnated at 50 per cent of agricultural output. The state's overall growth rate lagged at 3.6 per cent as against an all-India figure of 5.2 per cent. Considering how precarious Bengal's state is, it won't take less than a miracle to turn it around. Her populist measures and ballooning Rail budget deficit have not instilled confidence in her as a good manager.
But Mamata is a megalomaniac, building a covenant directly with the people. Her language might not be polished but she speaks to the taste of her constituencies. That's the deciding factor for the polls next month.
