By Aditya Aamir
And in this heart of darkness/Our hope lies on the floor/All love like flame is fleeting/When there is no hope anymore. So we feel, many of us, as 2019 general elections close in on us in a relentless caterpillar-walk. The caterpillar eats distance in a hump-and-slide manner and watching one cover the floor is to come prepared with time to spare, loads of sand to trickle!
Rahul Gandhi seems to have it. Not Mamata Banerjee. Both compete to look shabbier than the other. But it’s Mamata who can act shabbier. Rahul told the world earlier this year he wants to be Prime Minister. Mamata has now put her “hat in the ring”. It has come to rest next to Mayawati’s high-end handbag.
Both ladies want to replace Narendra Modi. There’s this feeling mounting that if Rahul steps to the neutral corner, mum Sonia Gandhi will throw her lot behind Mayawati because the BSP supremo will be far fairer to the Congress than the street-and-tumble artist from Kolkata.
West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has the discerning eye. He has read up on history and has knowledge of the animal kingdom. Adhir identifies Mamata to a Trojan horse. And a “chameleon”. Add to them ‘volatile’, ‘violent’ and ‘not above dubious’ and Mamata is a package that should not cross the gates of 7, Race Course Road!
India has been waiting for a Bengali Prime Minister. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose fit the yearning. But history and lifeline overrode the sentiment. Then, opportunity knocked on communist Jyoti Basu’s door. He, out of some inexplicable sentiment, chose to present his back. Now, pushing for the post, there is ‘in-your-face’ Mamata Banerjee – insistent, persistent…shrill!
Sorely, ‘Didi’ doesn’t come with an assurance. Her policy is yet to work wonders in West Bengal despite premiums paid. Why should it deliver on the centre-stage? West Bengal, with aspirations to become ‘Bangla’, looks as shabby as the leader at its top. The state’s human development indices are wobbly. Homeless abound in the City of Joy. The debt burden can sink the Titanic. Roads are in disarray. Streets have been taken over by Trinamool goons. Fat cats do not want to invest. Industry shrinks before Mamata’s eyes.
Mamata’s talk of ‘civil war’ and ‘bloodbath’ is a warning to the nation of divisive politics as well as a pointer to the kind of person she is. Mamata will keep every Indian on his toes, wary and suspicious of the other, wondering where the ‘Gandasa’ is kept hidden – bedroom or the attic! If nothing, the Assam NRC has brought this out into the open.
Is Mamata with “genuine Indians” or is she aligned with “illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators?” is no longer the question. She can’t say there isn’t one “illegal in Assam, Bengal and the entire northeast” because in 2005 she threw sheaves of them head-first on the Lok Sabha Speaker’s Chair, insisting that they be evicted, pronto, from West Bengal.
When her turn came, with the power to evict, Mamata chose not to take notice. Today, suspected illegals are those on whose back Mamata wants to give notice to the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ that she wants a change of residence. A Bengali Prime Minister is maybe what India needs. But Mamata Banerjee?
The banner Mamata holds up is a sign of anarchy. The template, which delivered Bengal to her, cannot be the one duplicated at the Centre. The spectacle at the Assam airport the other day is a sign of things to come if Mamata gets her way and becomes Prime Minister of India. Her cavalier manner doesn’t suit the high office. Mamata is tough. But her kind of toughness is not what India requires.
Mamata’s record speaks. ‘Roughshod’ is her style. She treats defence personnel like she owns the stable if not the horses. Unlike Jayalalithaa, she doesn’t ask bureaucrats to go full ‘shashtaang’ at her feet, but they nevertheless quaver in their shoes, knowing that she’s as capricious as a bouncing rubber ball.
The only ones who can stop Mamata are the leaders of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’. They should take her into a vault and ask her to retreat. Or, close the vault door on her and throw the keys into another vault with a combination lock. The Trinamool is a one-state party. With 40 lakh less voters, Assam is already lost to Mamata. ‘Bengali Hindu’ voters in her own state must be in two minds. Trinamool has no standing in any other Indian state.
Mamata at the helm cannot win India for the ‘Mahagathbandhan’. Mayawati could place it close. The only pan-India national face the Opposition has is Rahul Gandhi. Nobody else. No regional party head can throw a hat in the ring. By definition, a regional party head is limited to a region. So, the toss is between Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati. Mamata will have to find space on the Amul ad. (IPA Service)