Didi Rolls The Dice

The Bengal CM is banking on her Charisma to carry the TMC through. Will candidate selection and defections let her down?

- Romita Datta

There is no opposition, we are our own opposition,” Mamata Banerjee sounded stern. A cold, sweeping glance around the podium and the warnings continued, while party leaders hung their heads, avoiding eye contact. “I know who is doing what and who is contacting whom. I will not allow anyone to disrupt Maa-Maati-Manush (the Trinamool Congress slogan).” The ruling TMC in Bengal has been in a state of flux of late. There have been close to a dozen political murders, and every case seems to point to factional feuds within the party. Then there are the desertions, two sitting MPs being only the latest just two months before the election (see box: Open Season), and the possibility of a few more with ex-TMC strongman Mukul Roy on the prowl to poach for the BJP.

But these sort of troubles are unlikely to faze Mamata. She has faced heavier odds through the major part of her political career. As news trickled in of another turncoat, a party heavyweight, joining the BJP, she hollered that the onus was now on every TMC member to make sure the party symbol, the jora ghas phul (wildgrass flowers), bloomed in all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Mamata stressed that voting for the party meant voting for her, strengthening her hand to take on the “communal rioters (Narendra) Modi(Amit) Shah party”, the BJP. Names on the party’s list of Lok Sabha candidates include 17 new faces (13 of them defectors from other parties and four greenhorns, including two actresses). The CM knows there will be rumblings, and hence her next comment: “Whoever wants to go is free to leave. I don’t care, they are free to go...”