From fiery politician from an ordinary middle class to the chief minister-designate of West Bengal–it has been a long and arduous journey for Mamata Banerjee, the stormy petrel of state politics who has single handedly demolished the Marxist bastion.
The feisty 56-year-old Banerjee, who is the founder and chairperson of the Trinamool Congress set up in 1998 after falling out with Congress party, is now savouring the victory of a war she has fought so steadfastly often risking her own life.
For years the most credible face of the Opposition in West Bengal, Banerjee, known to her supporters as ‘Didi’ (sister), has been the nemesis of CPI(M)-led Left Front over the last 23 years and has earned the reputation of being a street-fighter.
A firebrand orator, coined a catchy slogan “Ma, Mati o Manush” and “poribartan” before last year’s Lok Sabha, the seven-time MP successfully sold a vision of development, cashing in on the widespread resentment among the middle classes and unemployed youths, promising jobs and development.
It has not been an easy journey though for Mamata to translate her call for “paribartan’ into reality.
Born in January 1955 into a lower middle class family and daughter of freedom fighter Promileswar Banerjee, she entered politics by joining the Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of Congress, while studying at the Jogmaya Debi College in Kolkata in 1970s.
Graduating to party politics, Mamata was general secretary of West Bengal women’s Congress unit in 1979-80 and subsequently held other posts in Congress.
Banerjee’s first tryst with the corridors of power came in 1991 when she became federal minister of state for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports and Women and Child Development in the Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao government.
In 1998 and 1999, Banerjee’s party won eight and seven seats in the Lok Sabha polls respectively and joined hands with BJP, seen in party circles as a disastrous move in hindsight.
During NDA rule under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Banerjee was Railway Minister in 1999 and for Coal and Mines in 2004. She was also a minister without portfolio for a brief period in 2003-4.
A relentless fighter against the CPIM, Banerjee never gave up and bided her time. Her opportunity came when the controversial land acquisition issue in Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal had exploded on the national scene in 2008. Since then, it has been a story of her continuous rise.
But her chances in 2011 was largely due to her continuing to project herself as leader of the poor and the rural have-nots, a friend of the minorities, a champion of inclusive growth and one genuinely interested in delivering the goods.
Whether Mamata succeeds in doing delivering the goods, only time can tell
Courtesy of The Daily Star
