A new chapter has begun in West Bengal with Mamata Bannerjee taking over as the first woman Chief Minister of the State. It was a remarkable achievement on her part to single-handedly topple a powerful leftist regime that was in office for 34 long years. The change in West Bengal was long overdue and Ms Bannerjee became the catalyst for it. However, her real test begins now. It is easy to sway the electorate which is already fed up with an incumbent regime that ruled over them for over three decades, with emotional issues at a given time. One has to wait and watch whether she delivers what she has promised, sooner than later. Good governance is a long and painstaking effort.
There is no dearth of sceptics and cynics who keep reminding us about Ms Bannerjee's unimpressive record as Union Railway Minister. On the top of it, she is known as mercurial and maverick with her own eccentricities. Once in power as Chief Minister of a volatile and sophisticated people, she has to lead with sagacity, finesse and patience, taking every one along.
Her Finance Minister Dr Amit Mitra, the erstwhile FICCI honcho, who starts his political career with a lot of media goodwill, however, disappointed me somewhat in his maiden TV interview on Headlines Today, May 20 night, He sounded too much of a faithful-more on the lines of a religious convert who chants "Allah, Allah, more than necessary, defending his leader Mamata Bannerjee whom he mysteriously insisted on repeatedly calling as "Mamata Bandhopadhya"(perhaps a more puritanical Bengali surname and not the Anglicised one); one has not heard her ever use "Bandhopadhya" as her surname. Ms Bannerjee struck her own discordant note at her first press conference as Chief Minister when she enthusiastically embraced the Congress minoritism plank as one of her foremost priorities. It seemed like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "Muslim first" slogan following the Sachar committee's recommendations.
There is no dearth of sceptics and cynics who keep reminding us about Ms Bannerjee's unimpressive record as Union Railway Minister. On the top of it, she is known as mercurial and maverick with her own eccentricities. Once in power as Chief Minister of a volatile and sophisticated people, she has to lead with sagacity, finesse and patience, taking every one along.
Her Finance Minister Dr Amit Mitra, the erstwhile FICCI honcho, who starts his political career with a lot of media goodwill, however, disappointed me somewhat in his maiden TV interview on Headlines Today, May 20 night, He sounded too much of a faithful-more on the lines of a religious convert who chants "Allah, Allah, more than necessary, defending his leader Mamata Bannerjee whom he mysteriously insisted on repeatedly calling as "Mamata Bandhopadhya"(perhaps a more puritanical Bengali surname and not the Anglicised one); one has not heard her ever use "Bandhopadhya" as her surname. Ms Bannerjee struck her own discordant note at her first press conference as Chief Minister when she enthusiastically embraced the Congress minoritism plank as one of her foremost priorities. It seemed like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "Muslim first" slogan following the Sachar committee's recommendations.
No comments:
Post a Comment