New Delhi: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today took oath for a second consecutive term as West Bengal chief minister in Kolkata. Popular as 'Didi' among masses, Mamata has an innate gift to sense what runs in the mind of Bengal. Her party's thumping victory in the assembly elections despite several corruption charges against her party members, is in itself a proof of her popularity in the state.
Here are 15 interesting facts about Mamata Banerjee
1) Born on January 5 in 1955 in a middle class family, Mamata had a very humble upbringing. Her father died due to lack of medical treatment, when she was 17.
2) Mamata has a Bachelor's degree in History from Jogamaya Devi College, later she got a Master's in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta followed by a degree in education from Shri Shikshayatan College.
3) Mamata Banerjee’s entry into politics was at a young age, she joined the Congress in the '70s. Her rise from the unknown worker pasting anti-CPM posters to General Secretary of the Congress' youth wing to contesting elections in 1984 is nothing less than meteoric.
7) Mamata Banerjee was attacked by CPI (M) goons in 1991 when she was leading a Congress rally at Hazra crossing in the southern part of Kolkata. Mamata had suffered serious injuries in the attack as her head was fractured.
8) Mamta has lost only one election till date. Out of 8 parliamentary elections, Mamta won seven times with the exception of 1989 loss to CPI(M)'s Malini Bhattachary. she won back in 1991 from Calcutta South constituency and then retained the Kolkata South seat in the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 general elections.
9) In 1997, she parted ways with the Congress to float her own party-Trinamool Congress. Later, She joined hands with both NDA and UPA.
10) She became a cabinet minister in Vajpayee government in 1999 only to walk out of alliance in 2001 after the Tehelka's exposure of Operation West End. She once again joined hands with NDA government in January 2004 and held the Coal and Mines portfolio.
11) Before the 2009 parliamentary elections she forged an alliance with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by Indian National Congress. The alliance won 26 seats. Banerjee joined the central cabinet as the railway minister (second tenure).
12) Mamata fiercely opposed Tata Motor's Nano project in Singur, On Dec 1,2006 She was prevented from entering Singur by the state police, an agitated Mamata called a state-wide bandh in protest while legislators belonging to her party turned violent in the legislative assembly causing damage to furniture. Later, she went on a 25-day hunger strike in protest forcing Tatas to pull out of Singur.
13) A fierce supporter of Women's reservation bill, Mamata had controversially held a Samajwadi Party MP, Daroga Prasad Saroj, by the collar and dragged him out of the well of the Lok Sabha on Dec 11, 1988 to prevent him from protesting against bill.
14) Mamata is credited with ending 34-year-old CPI(M) rule in West Bengal, the longest-serving democratically-elected communist government in the world. She contested assembly elections for the first time in 2011 pulling off a landslide victory thus becoming West Bengal's first woman CM.
15) A true music aficionado, one of her unprecedented moves as Chief Minister has been to arrange for the playing of Rabindra Sangeet at traffic signals in Kolkata. She also loves songs and poems by the legendary poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.
16) Known for leading a simplistic life, Mamata wears traditional Bengali cotton 'tant' sarees. Her ancestral residence at South Kolkata's Harish Chatterjee Street is a terracotta-tiled roof house, which gets flooded during heavy rain. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was quite taken aback when he visited her at her house when she was the Central Railways Minister.
17) Banerjee walks 5-6 kms on her treadmill every day. During elections she can walks for 10 Km at a stretch for campaign. She also takes long walks on the Assembly lawns along with her colleagues and journalists.
