As a triumphant Mamata Banerjee presides over a historic change of guard and takes over the reins at Writers’ Building in Kolkata on Friday, it’s perhaps an appropriate occasion to do a quick stock taking of the challenges that confront her.
Mamata's top priority as the CM will be to deliver on the promise of hope, change and prosperity. PTI
On one front at least she is giving a fairly good account of herself. For all the talk of a mercurial, whimsical and temperamental Mamata Banerjee, even her critics are admitting that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader has so far been quite humble, graceful and modest in her landslide victory.
From the time early trends started to indicate a debacle for the Left Front last week, Mamata has been a picture of responsible poise. In what was a clear message to everyone that she did not want any post poll violence, she appealed to her supporters to shun loud, aggressive and combative celebrations and warned her cadre not to consume alcohol.
The much talked about unpredictable nature of Mamata Banerjee, which was so much a part of the CPI(M) campaign to try and frighten the electorate with the alternative and discredit her, as also the almost constant frown she wore, has given way to a warm, smiling visage that is as comfortable accepting greetings from supporters as giving a bouquet to the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi.
It may be very early but at least in the first week of her success Mamata has not given any opportunity to those who maintained that she was unfit to be the chief minister on personality reasons alone.
Her one big challenge will be to keep proving such critics wrong as every action she takes and every word she utters will be intensely scrutinized and liberally commented upon.
The bigger challenge for her will be to start working as soon as possible on the huge expectations people have from her. They will expect her to start delivering on her slogan of paribortan, or change, in double quick speed.
Every institution worth the name — be it academics, bureaucracy or trade unions — has been systematically infiltrated and dominated by Left Front supporters. Mamata can’t run her administration—let alone start implementing her promise of change—without depoliticising these sensitive institutions. A bigger challenge will be to do this without there being an element of witch hunt which can be counterproductive as well as lead to violence.
Maintaining law and order and ensuring there is no violence—even in places where the CPI(M) cadre had ruled with an iron fist—has to be a priority for the new chief minister.
But her biggest priority really has to be to deliver on the promise of hope, change and prosperity she made to the electorate of West Bengal.
She has to start sending the right signal—may be from her first day in office itself—that West Bengal will no longer allow politics of poverty to thrive. She has to send a clear message that she welcomes industry, economic development and prosperity for all and these aims are in no way contradictory to her sympathy for the poor and the landless.
She would do well to remember that her victory cannot be only attributed to her standing steadfast with the farmers of Singur and Nandigram when the state was trying to take away their fertile lands without compensating them at a fair and market value.
The communists truly lost the battle — and this is something I was told by the outgoing chief minister , Budhadeb Bhattacharya— because they failed to recognize and fulfil the aspirations of the common Bengali.
For Mamata to succeed she will do well to remain in tune with the aspirations of the people looking for a more secure life with more opportunities to improve their lot.
Here’s a timeline of the rise of Mamata Banerjee, the destroyer of the Red monopoly in Bengal