“Change”, that was Mamata Banerjee’s war cry in her decisive battle against the Communists who had ruled West Bengal for a long 34 years and which led her to the Chief Minister’s chair in 2011. For years preceding that, people of the State had been seeing Mamata as that uncompromising, incorruptible Didi who would be ever-ready to fight for them. People believed her words that her government would be for “Ma-Mati-Manush” and rejected the Communists, and a late-entrant BJP and gave her a hat-trick of mandates.
Her government rolled out a clutch of welfare schemes that gave citizens, especially the women, small sums of money. Lakshmir Bhandar (for unemployed women regardless of financial background), Rupashree (a programme to sponsor the marriages of girls from financially underprivileged families), Kanyashree (a financial incentive programme to encourage girls to continue their studies), and Krishak Bandhu (financial compensation scheme for the family in case of death of a farmer in the state,) along with many others, continue to pay her party rich dividends in election after election.
Her party, the Trinamool Congress, aided by a section of media, labelled her “Satotar prateek”, or the “Symbol of Honesty”, and even put-up hoardings with the slogan.
Twelve years on, those hoardings can no longer be seen on the streets as the Mamata Banerjee Government is hit by revelations of corruption which are breathtaking not only in magnitude but by their spread.
Mamata’s credibility, built over the years, is now under serious threat as the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI, working under the supervision and prodding of the Calcutta High Court, unearth and arrest scamsters who invariably turn out to be leaders and sympathisers of the Trinamool Congress. Now, as every new day brings with it newer allegations of corruption, the Trinamool Congress is desperately trying to ring-fence Mamata from it all.
On TV debates, press conferences and public meetings, Trinamool spokespersons bravely and vociferously try to erect a wall between Mamata and the wrongdoings in the State. The intention is to safeguard the only credible face in the Trinamool Congress. It is a gambit that Mamata herself is using in public fora. Her refrain that “I did not know about it,” is a comedown for a leader known for her ear-close-to-the-ground intelligence. During her street-fighter years, many of Mamata’s lieutenants faced her wrath after underestimating her formidable political instincts and ground intelligence.
Calcutta High Court has become the new battleground where a clutch of Judges, led by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who has attained almost a demigod status in the State, are cracking down hard on complaints of corruption. Advocates who are politically aligned with the Opposition parties, the CPM, the BJP and the Congress, are on a daily basis filing petitions that show the Mamata Government in poor light.
On the streets of Kolkata, hundreds of young men and women, who were eligible for Government jobs but whose jobs were allegedly sold by TMC leaders and middlemen, are spending innumerable nights under the open skies in protest. Also out on the streets are thousands of Government employees. They are on the warpath demanding that the Mamata Government pay enhanced Dearness Allowance and arrears. Credibility of the House that Mamata built – literally with her blood, sweat and tears — is on the verge of collapse.
