Is Mamata Banerjee afraid of losing Bengal polls?
In 1980, director Saeed Akhtar Mirza made an outstanding Bollywood film titled 'Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai'. The protagonist of the movie is always angry but the audience can relate to his outrage because he responds to his conscience swaying from illusion to reality.
But why is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee so angry these days? What are her illusions and reality? Is she afraid of losing the Bengal battle?
Didi has been continuously breathing fire on the Election Commission after her accident in Nandigram on 10 March, accusing the poll body of colluding with the BJP. At a rally in Bankura, she claimed that the election body has been taking orders from Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Mamata Banerjee lambasted the poll watchdog for removing her security in-charge calling it a plot to kill her.
When her salvo of accusations reached a new low, the Election Commission shot off a sharp letter to the West Bengal Chief Minister terming her allegations an attempt to belittle the institution with repeated innuendos and averments.
Mamata Banerjee is furious because the Election Commission called her bluff puncturing her attempt-on-life narrative. After an investigation into the matter, the poll body declared that it was an accident that got her injured.
The Commission removed Didi's security in-charge Vivek Sahay because he violated her Z-Plus security protocol occupying the Chief Minister's bullet-proof himself. The election body remarked that Mamata Banerjee's driver and her security personnel did not act promptly when her vehicle was surrounded by a crowd.
The disclosure did not go down well with the TMC chief who hoped to exploit the public sentiments in her favour playing up the attack theory. In retribution, she tarred the poll watchdog with the same political brush and amped up the assault-on-life rhetoric in her campaigns.
Didi trying to gain sympathy votes?
In Bankura, Mamata asserted that she has been attacked several times in the past but she always overcame her injuries. In Kolkata, leading a TMC march on a wheelchair, she declared that an injured tigress would prove more dangerous for the BJP.
Indeed, Didi has been attacked, at least, thrice in the past. In 1990, when she was a youth Congress leader, Mamata was assaulted on her head by a CPI(M) youth wing worker in south Kolkata. In 1998, when the TMC was a BJP ally, she was assaulted by the state police for opposing the eviction of squatters in Kolkata. The third time, in 2006, on her way to Singur during the land movement Didi alleged that she was assaulted by the West Bengal police.
Mamata Banerjee took all these attacks in her strides and made the most of them in building her political career. The TMC chief, certainly, has been a street-fighter who wrestled her way to the post of the Chief Minister dismantling the politics of the left party in West Bengal.
But this time the two-term Chief Minister seems to be creating something that never happened, desperately trying to portray herself as a victim to gain sympathy votes, rather than seeking a mandate on the development work done by her government.
Ironically, she has been attempting everything in her reach to counter the BJP in Bengal, from reciting 'Chandi path' in the public rally to visiting as many as 19 temples in 28 hours, despite poll surveys hinting at an advantage TMC in the elections. Maybe because Didi knows it very well that sometimes pollsters go drastically wrong, and she doesn't want to take any chance.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of India TV. The author can be reached on Twitter @iamomtiwari)
