Mamata magic fails

KOLKATA: It’s back to square one for Mamata Banerjee.
In 1998, when the then state Youth Congress president rebelled against the Congress top brass, she had one more MP on her side — Ajit Panja.
Her new outfit, Trinamul Congress, took everybody by surprise by securing six seats at its maiden electoral appearance in 1998. She consolidated her position in 1999 further by bagging three more seats.
And the rest is history.She fast assumed the status of an icon among the anti-Leftists in Bengal.
But destiny thought it otherwise and her slew of hasty decisions — ranging from quitting Union cabinet on the Tehelka issue to aligning with the Congress prior to the 2001 assembly polls — cost her dearly.
Even a delayed return to the NDA Cabinet did not help her much. With all her party colleagues in the last Lok Sabha failing to get re-elected, she is now virtually alone to represent Trinamul in Parliament (her only other party MP now is P.A. Sangma, re-elected from Tura, Meghalaya).
According to her party colleagues, it is not the anti-NDA factor alone, which ensured Trinamul’s rout. Added to this is the poor credibility of the party — declining ever since Mamata left the Union cabinet in 2001.
The resurgence of Congress in the Murshidabad-Malda-North Dinajpur clearly indicated that despite her best efforts, it is the Congress which has won over a sizeable chunk of the minority vote this time.
Some of her party colleagues fear that the immediate fall-out could be an exodus of party workers to the rejuvenated Congress.
The Trinamul chief could not read the writing on the wall, said a party MLA from south Kolkata. After the setback in assembly and panchayat polls, she did nothing to strengthen the organisation. And she made a major blunder while selecting candidates for this election.
Trinamul could have easily won the Kolkata North-West seat had she given it to Sudip Bandyopadhyay, said a Trinamul office-bearer.
Once known as a firebrand leader — ever since she defeated CPM stalwart Somnath Chatterjee in Jadavpur in 1984 — today her image has indeed taken a beating.
A sharp drop in her victory margin — from 214,000 to 98,000 — has clearly shown that the Mamata magic is now on the wane. This can surely be construed as an advantage for the ruling Marxists two years ahead of the next electoral battle.