Politician Of The Year - Mamata Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee has convincingly demolished the myth of invincibility attached to the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo. Her landslide election victory in West Bengal in 2021, despite the BJP’s hyped up campaign, polarising manoeuvres and huge mobilisation of resources, has given hope to the Opposition. They see in her the most worthy opponent to Modi in the Lok Sabha battle of 2024

- Romita Datta

Taking a challenger head on is second nature to Mamata Banerjee. Be it her fiery entry into electoral politics in 1984, when the late Pranab Mukherjee pitted her as the Congress candidate against CPI(M) heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee from Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat, or the epic assembly election battle with the BJP in West Bengal in 2021, Mamata has shown she has the staying power to emerge triumphant in the end. The BJP’s arrogant claim that Didi and her Trinamool Congress (TMC) would be thrown out of Bengal lock, stock, and barrel—“ukhaad ke phek denge”—proved hollow. Bengal reaffirmed faith in their “nijer meye (own daughter)”, putting Mamata in the saddle for a third straight term with a landslide mandate.

What sets Mamata apart is her remarkable tenacity and diligence in making the most of any fight. In Jadavpur in 1984, with meagre resources at her disposal (the Congress was not ready to invest in a ‘lost’ seat), Mamata could not mobilise party workers behind her in long processions or even hire a vehicle to go wheeling around her constituency. She did her own wall writings and posters and campaigned door to door, going to homes in the poor settlements and bonding with the women over tea and puffed rice in the kitchen. Here was a 29-year-old woman in a white cotton saree, sporting a steel bangle, an HMT wrist watch and a jhola, raring to trek the political terrain in a pair of hawai chappals (flip-flops). Somnath’s shock defeat in that contest first earned Mamata the giant slayer tag.