BJP versus everyone else: Mamata is only as anti-Modi as required to keep her 30% Muslim voters happy

By Gouri Chatterjee

Didi was lovin’ it. Clearly.

She grinned complacently from ear to ear, bowed graciously to one and all on the stage at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, oozed a quiet confidence that stemmed from knowing that even amongst the galaxy of politicians assembled to bless the investiture of Nitish Kumar she burned especially bright. Mamata Banerjee was not quite where she wanted to be, but she wasn’t complaining.

She arrived at the Narendra Modi-style public swearing-in accompanied by Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal with whom she had just had a tête-à-tête. She had already had one with DMK’s Stalin and even though delayed flights had disrupted those with Sharad Pawar of NCP and Farooq Abdullah of Kashmir she knew they would happen. Everyone wanted to talk to the chief minister of West Bengal, even Rahul Gandhi who spent quiet moments with her at the high tea thrown by the newly sworn in chief minister of Bihar. No wonder TV channels were giving her star billing, as if she is the key to the formation of a pan-Indian Mahagathbandhan (MGB) to take on Modi at the Centre.

She is — because right now she needs the MGB as much as they need her. She has of course her kitty of 34 Lok Sabha MPs to bring to the table, a kitty that may well increase in the next round as the BJP is likely to continue its rapid downhill slide in the state since the high of 2014 and the Left is unlikely to recover sufficiently in the near future — giving her enormous muscle in any possible MGB sarkar in Delhi in the days to come.

She has, too, taking a leaf out her bête noire’s leftist notebook, who in their day in the Eighties had made ‘centre-state relations’ their war cry, raised the banner of a more equitable sharing of taxes between the Centre and the states as well as a rollback on cuts in central subsidies for “implementing people-friendly projects” – providing a platform for the states to rally around. Who knows, the prime minister may even respond to her spate of letters (three in the last four months) and call a meeting of chief ministers to discuss these subjects.

But whatever the outcome of such a meeting, it is unlikely to be enough to satisfy the voracious appetite of West Bengal’s chief minister who loves to hand out largesse to all and sundry, from ageing film stars to young village girls, from local sporting clubs to rural self-help groups, but for which she does not have adequate income. With her sticking to her rigid land policy of Singur fame, i.e. no government takeover of land for industry, industrialists are hardly beating a path to her doorway. Yet, that being the cornerstone of her politics, how she came to power and how she stays in power, with a little bit of help from cash handouts and musclemen, she is not going to change tack in a hurry.

Her government has shown no great imagination in raising earnings any other way. Hence her critical need for Central sops and, accordingly, a greater say in the Centre. What she really wants is a complete moratorium on the ginormous debt her government inherited from her predecessors and which she has only added to, making it difficult at times to pay even salaries of government employees on time. She had demanded it of poor Manmohan Singh who had not had the temerity to oblige, leading to her leaving his government in a huff.

Armed with a huge majority, Narendra Modi has, so far, felt even lesser need to go out of his way and make an exception for Mamata Banerjee, especially at a time when Amit Shah was breathing fire at the eastern states. If he had, Didi would have, like him, found “pressing engagements” to stay away from Patna on Friday. Even now, if he finds a way to do the impossible, Arvind Kejriwal may have lost a new-found friend as Mamata Banerjee is only as much anti-Modi as is needed to keep her 30 per cent Muslim voters happy.

Of course, she’d like to be PM, who wouldn’t? In fact, such dreams had been dreamt in 2014 itself when it was predicted that there’d be another hung Parliament in Delhi and she, with her cache of MPs, could call the shots. Her party had openly touted her name as the next Prime Minister of India during the election campaign; she herself had not openly voiced such ambitions but did not demur when the eminent writer and her great supporter Mahasweta Devi issued a signed statement in Kolkata endorsing her for the PM’s post. But when asked about Narendra Modi’s praise for her at a rally in Kolkata, she had blurted out, “He has been doing this very cleverly. He is saying that you stay in your state and not go out. That’s why I am saying if he had come to Kolkata, I can go to Delhi.”

Behind the scenes, her emissaries, especially Mukul Roy, then her closest confidante and her party’s all-India secretary but who has since fallen from grace, went and met leaders of different non-BJP and non-Congress parties to garner support for her. There was even the misadventure of a joint public meeting with Anna Hazare at the Ram Lila Maidan in Delhi which turned into a disaster with Hazare a no-show.

But hope springs eternal. Earlier this year, her nephew and heir apparent in her Trinamool Congress party, Abhishek Banerjee had declared at a public meeting, “Bengal has given the country Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore and President Pranab Mukherjee. The state is soon going to give it a new PM too.” Mamata’s own horizons too have evidently broadened beyond the narrow confines of her state. In recent weeks she has sent a congratulatory message to Aung Sang Suu Kyi, invited Pakistan singer Ghulam Ali to Calcutta to make up for his cancelled concert in Mumbai, offered to host Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shahryar Khan for his meeting with the BCCI that had also been disrupted by the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, rolled out the red carpet for Chinese Vice-President Li Yuanchao where they discussed the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor, which will connect Kolkata with Kunming in China via Dhaka in Bangladesh and Mandalay in Myanmar.

But that was before 8 November, when the dramatic results in Bihar turned everything topsy turvy and Nitish Kumar, for all practical purposes, pipped her to the post. Nitish is not only a giant-slayer, he is also a far more acceptable face than the mercurial Mamata in an enterprise that will require getting along with various conflicting forces.

And Mamata has to grin and bear it. She hadn’t even bothered to go and campaign for the RJD-JD(U) combine before the elections even though she had been invited to do so, and broadcast a message of support for them only towards the very end of the 5-phase elections. But once the results were out she was first off the mark to tweet her congratulations and book a ticket to Patna for the swearing in. Her long-term survival in her own state demands she hop on to the Nitish bandwagon — as much for central sops as for having a say in national politics.