Didi is back with a bang. With an even larger majority than last time.
Published: Fri 20 May 2016, 12:00 AM
Last updated: Fri 20 May 2016, 2:00 AM
When I was in Kolkata last month, right ahead of the waves of voting in West Bengal, I heard Mamata Banerjee - aka, Didi (Bengali for elder sister, just in case you didn't know) - was skating on thin ice. It started with the Bihari cabbie who was driving me home from the airport. "All taxi drivers in Kolkata will be voting for the Left en masse - we are furious at being short-changed by the TMC [the party Didi heads]," he screamed over the volume of FM radio. "And don't underestimate us: we have solid numbers! What's more, all non-Bengalis will be voting against the TMC."
How did he know? "I have my sources," he said mysteriously.
Soon, we passed the Bengali Big Ben. Didi, who has promised to turn Kolkata into London (she, of course, pronounces it - endearingly, if I may add - 'Lawndawn') of the East, has had a Big Ben replica (okay, it's kind of a shrunk version) installed on VIP Road; my driver snorted out his displeasure in a most unbecoming manner while posing a rhetorical question (for Didi): "You think you can fool all the people all the time?"
At home, my father - who, in any case, feels Mamata is a tad too common to preside over the bhadraloks of Bengal - was also singing a swansong for Didi. "Look at the havoc she's wreaked: corruption (Saradha scam, Narada sting), flyover collapse, her foot-in-the-mouth syndrome, the lumpen elements who comprise her party cadres - all of these will work against her."
Is she gonna lose, I asked excitedly?
"Maybe not this time - but she's going to get a hugely whittled-down number of seats. It's the beginning of the end for her," he summed up triumphantly.
I realised my father's comprehension of Bengal politics is derived from The Telegraph, Kolkata's most-read English language daily; he reads the newspaper religiously, cover to cover. The Telegraph and the group it's part of, Ananda Bazar Patrika (that also owns an eponymous, mega vernacular daily and the thriving ABP News channel), had been walloping Mamata and her brand of politics like it was their nuclear mission. But surely that was not the reason why my mother's newly acquired, semi-English speaking domestic help Molly was also seeing end of days for Mamata. She doesn't read the papers ("no time") and hates watching the telly. "I get my information from the ground," she told me proudly. "If you ask me, she will lose this time itself."
Most of my journalist friends in Kolkata were of the opinion Mamata would win, but with lesser margins (toeing my dad's line). So, what really took me by surprise was a news report on how Didi was going around on last-minute campaign trails with folded hands, trying to say sorry for her "misdeeds", looking snivelly and shifty-eyed. One headline blurted out something along the lines of: 'Is Mamata scared to look at defeat squarely in the eye?'
Oh. My. God. I felt like Janice in Friends. Were Molly and my cabbie spot on with their political analyses?
As it turned out: No. Didi is back with a bang. With an even larger majority than last time. She's also being humble, and not trying to be too "greedy" (forget Saradha and Narada). Here's what she told a news channel as results establishing her party's scaffolding on the state of Bengal started flowing in: "I am a commoner, . I don't want to be anything more. I can play some role for my country because I love my motherland I want to see my country to develop. So there if I can play a small role I can play that. But there are so many friends that can sit together, that can decide together I can help them. I am not a greedy person." Experts sitting in the studios feel this is Didi hinting at prime ministerial ambitions.
Meanwhile, I am remembering the shot of Mamata cosily ensconced between Imran Khan and Wasim Akram at Eden Gardens recently; I had posted the photo on Facebook, and all my female friends had been going green with envy (Facebook envy, I know, but so what?). Didi sure knows how to pull things off.
sushmita@khaleejtimes.com
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