In her quest for greater glories and setting up an alternative front post-2014 elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee has taken to the social media with a vengeance. In a recent post, she revealed her hand: ‘‘Time has come for all the regional parties to come together and form a federal front in the coming Lok Sabha election. Let us stand together. Let us talk together. Let us decide a plan of action for the next Lok Sabha elections.”
She continued: ‘‘I appeal to all non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to launch a united fight to free the country from misrule and anti-people decisions and work together to build a better and brighter India.” Her recent bonhomie with Nitish Kumar and Navin Patnaik, both anti-Congress and anti-BJP, is a pointer in that direction.
Why is Mamata pursuing this idea with such fervor? A look at the current political scenario in Bengal offers some clues. The state’s civil society is yet to recover from the June 21 rally, a day when Kolkata witnessed huge protests comprising the city’s intellectuals and common people against the serial rape cases taking place in Bengal – more importantly the protest focused on West Bengal’s first woman chief minister and her utter lack of sensitivity towards an issue which has rocked the country. Without a political banner, the wave of anger on June 21– coincidentally also the foundation day of Left Front Government formed in 1977 – was quite unprecedented.
The rally took place at a time when the Mamata administration is trying hard to cope with the million dollar Saradha chit-fund scam and a running battle of attrition over the upcoming panchayat elections with the State Election Commission.
Does Mamata have national acceptance to make a clarion call for a federal front? Veteran educationist Sunanda Sanyal does not think so. ‘‘Mamata will have no decisive role to play in the Lok Sabha elections of 2004. The only thing she can do – and which she is doing – is taking this state towards destruction. She has been unable to fulfill her promises in Bengal so what is there to talk about the country?”
Sanyal, a bitter critic of the Left Front government and a former supporter of Mamatadi, has received legal notices from the Trinamool Congress in addition to some offensive SMSs when he started to raise his voice against the chief minister
The Congress too is not impressed. Terming her federal front as a mere ‘day-dream’, Congress spokesperson Shakil Ahmed did not pull punches on what he thought was the future of such a front. ‘‘Point to be noted that all the three (Mamata, Nitish and Navin) opting for the federal front are just regional parties and have no national entity. Mamata has every right to dream but practically such a front is not possible.’’ There appears to be a great deal of unanimity on this. RSP’s Amrito Maity told TSI, ‘‘It’s true that there is a huge anti-Congress sentiment. But that doesn’t mean that Mamata has got the space and accountability to form such a front. She has a fickle mind and is concerned about her own supremacy, above everything else.’’
Minister of Railways Adhir Chowdhury, Bengal Congress’s strongman, believes the chief minister’s current posturing is old hat. ‘‘There is nothing new in Mamata’s recent demand. Earlier we used to hear it from Prakash Karat, now it is Mamata.”
At a recent press conference, Mamata went so far as to suggest that to oust the UPA, even a meeting with CPM at their Alimuddin Street headquarters could not be ruled out. But critics call it a political stunt. They say she has been floating in and out of central power; three times she became Union minister, but never completed a full term. Trinamool Congress has aligned with different coalition governments — from NDA to UPA. Mamata’s consistency has been marked only in one respect – her combat against CPM which is why the state’s electorate has backed her. Otherwise, many political analysts and intellectuals doubt her politics. Magsaysay Award winner Mahasweta Devi once said, ‘‘It is very difficult to say what her politics is all about. We have seen that she is mostly against the CPM – nothing more.”
Meanwhile Mamata’s love-hate relationship with the Congress continues. She pulled out of the UPA alleging that ‘‘Congress had become CPM’s ‘B’ team’’. Since then, it has been a series of ups and downs, with current equations between the two bordering on hostility.
Says Adhir Chowdhury: ‘‘In a democratic system everybody has the right to dream. There exist a large numbers of highly-ambitious regional leaders like her who love to cover up their own faults. Mamata cannot even rule a state, forget about the country.’’
With BJP withdrawing its candidate in the recently-concluded Howrah parliamentary by-polls, there has been speculation that Mamata might be getting closer to BJP. But despite being a former member of NDA, Mamata is no longer in a position to tie up with them, given her recent pro-minority statements. Soon after BJP announced Modi as their poll campaign in charge, Mamata began on the speculation of a federal front – as articulated in her Facebook account. The BJP has refrained from attacking Mamata because they want her back in the NDA. Said BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman: ‘‘Parties (of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha) who are keen to form a federal front are basically non-Congress and the federal front call reflects their frustration.’’ The federal front is not a reality at the moment but it is to counter this idea that CPM has come up with its own idea of a third front. If anything, it further weakens Mamata’s chances.
