It's Time To Repay For Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Club’ Boys

As the poll campaign warms up, it’s time for Mamata Banerjee’s ‘club’ boys to repay those years of rewards and awards.

- Romiya Datta

Russa Youngmen’s Association, which looks like an innocuous shelter in the shade of a huge krishnachura tree, gets totally transformed as daylight fades and the birds retire for the day. Young and middle-aged men, many of them party supporters, keep trooping in and make a beeline for the Trinamool Congress office just across the street. The sports association, meant for coaching boys in carrom and chess, also shifts itself from the humble abode to the sprawling portico (actually the pavement) of the TMC party office of ward No. 84, in South Kolkata, just a kilometre away from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence. What follows is the tutoring of the young brigade in the art of ‘conducting’ polls and of being committed cadre.

Welcome to one of the 7,500 clubs which have popped up in Kolkata and its suburbs, with their ‘offices’ in the dingy allies, obscure lanes, the main thoroughfares, under a tree, or on the benches at a tea stall, all of them vying for a piece of the TMC government’s yearly dole for ‘clubs’ (Rs 2 lakh in the first year and one lakh for the subsequent four years).

GROUND SUPPORT

Since 2012, Mamata Banerjee has been spending lavishly on these local clubs. Officially, of course, the funds are to promote sports and extra-curricular activities among the jobless youth. But in reality, the ruling party uses the clubs as a front for assembling the local unemployed men and the toughs under the TMC banner. It ensures them a steady supply of funds and political patronage for their allegedly nefarious activities in exchange for allegiance during election time.