Bengal’s sorry plight continues
By Ashis Biswas
Even her hordes of admirers in Bengal admitted it – if she was overconfident as an opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee as a Chief Minister could be both unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Her impulsive, out-of-the-box- ways as an opposition leader totally flummoxed the staid CPI(M) leadership . But now that she heads the state Government, the gloom- and -doom prophecies seem to be coming true.
She now faces the most serious crisis of her political career, forget the raucous party rallies and sycophantic media coverage. Bengal is indebted to the tune of over Rs 200,000 crore to the centre. It has repeatedly requested the centre to arrange some bailout package.
These days New Delhi itself is cash-strapped. It is in no position to play the benevolent Santa to each and every hard-pressed state. Special package for individual states is a difficult order to fulfill in the best of circumstances in a federal political structure
Ms Banerjee has come to power by promising everything to everyone — better economic deals for government employees, the minorities, the tribals, the Gorkhas, teachers, students, pensioners, women, sportspersons, film people — there is no end to the list! As the vocal Gorkhas, tribals and minorities now want their payback, she periodically renews her request to the centre, which in turn gives her the standard reply : generate more revenues , follow the example of other states.
And this the iron lady is not willing to do. She will not allow any fresh taxes, nor increase existing taxes as this will “hurt the people”. The centre must pay her all the hundreds of crores of rupees she needs unconditionally and suspend temporarily all loan repayment with interest. At the same time, she will declare at all important gatherings, ”We are not begging from the centre, we never beg!”.
By way of raising revenues, the government has increased excise duty on costly foreign liquor, parking fees and so on. Finance Minister Amit Mitra projected an increase of 35% in revenues from these and other measures. So far there has been only a 16% increase, less than half of his projections. There is no significant new investment. When the Government talks of “potential investment of Rs 65,000 crore,” it refers to projects that began under the previous Left front Government.
On top of the unfortunate exit of the Nano car project, the state’s insistence that government will not make available land to industries has put off most investors. There is virtually no employment generation.
On the other hand, negatives abound. Scores of children and poor people die daily in government-run hospitals through botched up “treatment”. Major fires, farmers” suicides and violent incidents take a heavy toll of life. Law and order continues to cause worries in towns and suburbs, roads are not repaired, students assaulting principals in colleges go unpunished if they belong to the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party.
Yet, Ms Banerjee and her Ministers claim to have achieved “far more than we promised in our election manifesto” already in 240-odd days of their five year tenure. They also claim to have created “more than 2,75,000 jobs,” without giving details.
Ms Banerjee is not worried about West Bengal at present. because she has “already done enough work, more than what the Left did in 35 years!”: She is now keen to make the TMC” a national party”. The TMC is putting up candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Goa Manipur and other states in the coming polls. West Bengal can wait.
A TMC Rajya Sabha MP told IPA,” We are contesting many seats in these states. We hope to win 3 or 4 .Even if we do not win many, we will win a percentage of the total votes polled, which will help us establish ourselves as a national party.”
Is it surprising that the new Chief Minister is already losing her interest in her own political base, which has sustained her intellectually challenged party all these years ? No, if one recalls her record as a ruler and a Minister at the centre. She was Union Minister for Youth and Sports under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Railway Minister twice, with the NDA and the UPA Ministries.
There is no record of her performing as a very effective or efficient Minister at the centre. All three times, she did not complete her tenure. In particular, her controversial handling of the Railway Portfolio has generated serious doubts as to whether the Ministry can avoid making major losses in the days ahead!
“There is good reason to believe by her track record that whenever she finds the going tough, she always changes tack and creates attention- diverting situations or engineers political crises, leaving others to clean up the mess she leaves behind,” says an observer. ”By going “national”, she is about to do the same to West Bengal as she had done with the Railways”.
Her proposal to rename the Indira Bhavan at Salt Lake is symptomatic of the way her mind works. Now that she has won the Assembly elections and seeking to acquire a national image, she is driving home the lesson that she is no less important than erstwhile leaders like the late Indira Gandhi! Until recently, she used to go out of her way to spite and insult her election ally, the Congress. This, despite the best, sincere efforts made by Union Ministers Jairam Ramesh and Mr Pranab Mukherjee to make sure that rural development does not come to a grinding halt in the state!
It can be argued that Ms Banerjee, no” builder” at any level, has never really evolved from her old persona as an opposition leader, with a flair for disruptive agitations, for sound and fury without substance. This bodes ill for West Bengal. Her failure to change her ways is a tragedy for the people of the state.
For even if she had never become the Chief Minister, her place in Indian history would have been assured : no one else could have taken on and beaten the CPI(M) as decisively as Ms Mamata Banerjee! (IPA)