TMC’S SECOND INNINGS

MAMATA Banerjee is back in the saddle in West Bengal with a thumping majority. The Trinamool Congress(TMC) bagged 211 out of 294 seats in the assembly. The Left-Congress alliance proved a total failure. What about the future? The Opposition is now muted and the TMC can continue its misrule with impunity. But such complacency can prove its undoing. There is another way of looking at the victory. The Left Front has been wiped out. It is time for Mamata to consolidate her image. She is not merely a deconstructor. She can now be a genuine constructor with no opposition to reckon with. She can put an end to political violence and revive rule of law. But the attack on Rupa Ganguly, former actress and BJP legislator does not raise much hope. Mamata should take her lesson from the second innings of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. During his first term, he won accolades for his performance which got the CPI (M) an absolute majority in the second term. But complacence and overdrive reduced the CPI(M) to its present condition. Mamata has to build on her renewed popularity. The corruption of the party has to be eradicated. The defeat of Madan Mitra, a former TMC minister, who is in jail for charges of corruption proves that people will not have it. And the rise of gangsterism should be contained forever. Mamata Banerjee has it in her to achieve it. As for the Congress it remains a small player now in West Bengal politics. CPI (M) cadres believe that the Party’s marriage of convenience with the Congress has dealt it a fatal blow. India’s political firmament is itself going through desperate contortions. It will be a while before some form of non-BJP Third Front alliance emerges. Whether India is ready for such a front or will regional satraps like Mamata and Jayalalitha be reduced to despots in their own states is still a moot point