By Karmanye Thadani:
Ms. Banerjee is at it again, the drama queen! Putting dissenters in jail in her own state, reinforcing – not without due cause – the title of ‘Hitler Didi’, she has emerged as the biggest dissenting voice within the UPA. How ironic! Perhaps, with her non-communal credentials, she is all set to ally with various regional forces to spearhead a Third Front movement, though other than commitment to not having hate-mongering and riots against Muslims and Christians (we certainly don’t want more of those barbarous activities), this hypothetical alliance fails to have any clear and coherent ideology, as regards how it seeks to address economic concerns or other human rights issues the country faces or even secessionist movements or foreign policy issues, and even the SP and BSP seem to be in no mood to take up this adventure.
She is up in arms against the introduction of FDI in retail, which is fair enough had it been imposed on the states, but not if the states are free to accept or reject this proposal. She may recall her ministers, but her party has virtually no national presence and people in India are quite tuned into thinking of national politics in bipolar terms or in very few cases, tri-polar terms, the third segment being the Left, certainly not the TMC, and the UPA can sustain itself without the TMC. Banerjee is all set to reduce her bargaining power in New Delhi. It may be nice that way, since she wouldn’t be able to misuse those ministries to appease the populace of her state at the expense of others.
These publicity stunts don’t seem to be taking her anywhere and most of my Bengali friends tell me that they would vote her out of power in the next term.
[box bg=”#fdf78c” color=”#000″]About the author: The author is a freelance writer based in New Delhi and has co-authored two short books, namely ‘Onslaughts on Free Speech in India by Means of Unwarranted Film Bans’ and ‘Women and Sport in India and the World: A Socio-Legal Perspective’. To read his other posts, click here.[/box]