West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s virtual rally on Tuesday to mark Martyrs Day could be termed as one of the most lacklustre ones since she started the event 26 years ago. The rally is held in memory of 13 Youth Congress workers who were killed in a police firing in Kolkata on July 21, 1993.
Banerjee seemed short of confidence as she faced the camera and addressed people from her office, with just one colleague sitting behind her; she sought help from her booth workers and resisted taking the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and even state Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. Her only target was the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Not long ago, Banerjee would call both PM Modi and Shah as ‘Gujju Bhai’, sometimes from a government platform. The chief minister, however, praised the prime minister for visiting the state within hours after Cyclone Amphan but remarked that the Rs 1,000 crore aid is “too little”.
On Monday, governor Dhankhar had met Shah and informed him about the law and order situation in West Bengal and the politicisation of the administration, particularly of the state police.
A day later, Banerjee was warned, but she responded that one must go to Uttar Pradesh to understand if there is lawlessness in Bengal or not.
What is more surprising is that she made a grand announcement to the people, particularly those who heavily rely on the public distribution.
“If I come back to power, the people of Bengal would get free rationing forever,” she said.
However, such a decision is lost in the cacophony of her political test in 2021. Unlike before, she did not sell the idea that she would be sure to win the Bengal election.
How would the government arrange such a huge amount of money when it is fighting hard to tackle scams in the distribution channel? People are raising concern over the ill-distribution of the rationing system which has become an issue.
Banerjee, however, dismissed it as an issue in certain outlets and said that it cannot be generalised. But the ground situation says otherwise. At Sandeshkhali of Sunderbans, even a central public undertaking could not give relief to people ravaged by the cyclone because local Trinamool Congress leaders demanded that the relief should go through them.
There is no clarity on how Banerjee planned to handle the public outrage because of the political toughs in her own party.
The chief minister appealed to booth workers of her party to stay united and help her make a comeback. It is too early to say who will win the next assembly elections in the state, but she said that she would not like to make Covid-19 an issue during the polls. Banerjee did not shed any light on how she planned on tackling the spread of the infection even as the government accepted that the state is on the verge of community transmission.
What the TMC leader should have done is direct her party workers to enforce more discipline and help her government combat the immediate crisis in Bengal. With more than 35 deaths reported per day in Bengal in the last week, Banerjee would have done better announcing her party’s intention to tackle the pandemic. Instead, she fell into the BJP’s trap, declaring, “No one should forget my movement against NPR and NRC.”
Surprisingly, she resisted making the Citizenship Amendment Act an issue, a law framed by the Union government of India that the state has opposed.
However, Banerjee spoke responsibly as she addressed the people and attacked the Central government, despite lacking the fiery spirit she displays during her political rallies in front of lakhs.