Mamata Is Back On The Streets

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is again back on the streets. Her trajectory is as divergent and distanced as possible from that of the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) crisscrossing the state to check on the state’s compliance to lockdown rules.

- Romita Datta

Zooming past in an SUV with a microphone in her hand she’s stopping in front of high-rises, market places, hawking zones, and neighbourhood slums. Without bothering about the audience, not that she was likely to have one in the middle of the crisis, she is playing her part: alerting home-bound people to stay at home. “The Centre has imposed the lockdown and wants it to be strongly implemented,” she added.

The message was clear. By saying so, on the one hand she was trying to impress upon the Central team, spying on her every move and activities, that she was following and asking the people of her state to follow the lockdown rules.

On the other hand she was laying it bare that she had no role behind inconveniencing people —struggling to survive, without jobs and an uncertain future. For 1.5 crore people in Bengal, who live by the day, working in the unorganised sector, dying by hunger is a bigger threat than Corona.