Why Didi and TMC need a PR manager

Madan Mitra, evidently, isn’t inconvenienced at having his foot stuffed in his mouth occasionally. For all you know, he doesn’t even realise its stuck in the wrong place. Because in the world according to Madan Mitra, life’s good. The state he comes from has the best law and order discipline in his country, he says. And for people who think otherwise and might dare to say so, there’s always the jail. By now, you know he figures in Mamata Banerjee’s coterie of ministers, the state transport minister in fact. And this is the same man, a non-star portfolio holder in Banerjee’s cabinet, who made headlines during the media war against the government over the Park  Street rape case. [caption id=“attachment_426192” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The TMC government’s public relations need an immediate makeover. Reuters.[/caption] He wondered aloud and to the media, with much surprise, why a thirty-something, divorced mother-of-two would be drinking alone in an upscale bar in Kolkata. So when he brushes aside back-to-back incidences of gangrape in West Bengal, by declaring the state’s law and order is way better than others, it isn’t all that shocking. He’s probably only keeping up with the Trinamool Congress government’s tradition of miserable public relations, ever since it assumed office. Led by its chief whip Mamata Banerjee, the TMC’s public relations, or the lack of it, has probably done more damage to it than its run-ins with the UPA. When the TMC opens its mouth it hints at arrogance – sweeping statements, loud dismissals or counter opinions and branding of criticism as ‘conspiracy’. But in reality it is more proof of the political naïveté of the government. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee leads the pack from the front here. From dismissing incidents of farmer suicides as rumours to blaming rape allegations as CPI(M) conspiracies, Mamata Banerjee’s politics has continued to be that of resist and protest. That, coupled with Banerjee’s vocal athletics, had worked wonders in stirring mass hysteria when she was in the opposition. A year after becoming the chief minister, Banerjee’s politics didn’t stop being that of a rabble-rousing opposition party’s. So, while her electorate waited for her to bring up responsibility in her political narrative, Banerjee, was already busy heaving it off – on the CPI(M), or Maoists, or imaginary dushtu lok (mischief makers). And while Banerjee and Trinamool refuse to desert their ‘protestor’ avatar, their change of political status has simultaneously changed their image and its attendant responsibilities, in public imagination. Hence, the PR gaffes, the gradually widening chasm between the party and what was her urban vote bank (Trinamool had won in all constituencies in Kolkata during last year’s polls). The city doesn’t get her anymore, and she, true to herself, doesn’t seem to care. And her ministers just play follow the leader. Madan Mitra’s own website describes him as a “worker of the Indian All India Trinamul Congress and an ardent follower of Srimati Mamata Bandyopadhyay and her policies.” Banerjee is no more just a CPI(M) slayer. It’s another thing, there’s no one to tell her that. She and her party needs some serious re-branding, which won’t happen by painting public urinals blue, or by pretending women don’t get raped in Bengal.