Scapegoats?

Protecting CM Mamata Banerjee from the acts of omission and commission of her party colleagues must be an herculean task for Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist for TMC. Quickly he drew the curtains and ended all statements by the CM against complaints of cut money, and later over the allegations of improprieties in the distribution of relief materials.

Mamata’s daily press briefings were also curtailed to reduce her direct role in the Covid related mismanagement.  Covid is misery, but one cannot deny the State handling thousands of crores worth of relief and rehabilitation and its impact with forthcoming elections. Many within the party, peeved at being left out, were waiting for an opportunity to hit back when the CM was at her weakest. 

However, none would dare to take on the CM, unless one has decided to quit the party. Therefore, the target was her trusted lieutenant,  Firhad (Bobby)Hakim, the Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, and MIC Urban Development and Municipal Affairs. Bobby is touted as the secular minority face, wherever it helped, and even headed the Tarakeshwar Temple Board for a while.

With no water and no electricity for days on, the people’s ire turned at CESC, the sole electricity provider for the city. The per-unit cost of power is the highest, charged by CESC, compared to any other cities in India. CESC’s excuse of shortage of staff due to lockdown had no merit. Soon the known stories of the intimate friendship between the government and the owners of CESC surfaced. Sanjeev Goenka even had bought a painting done by the CM, the CM rewarding Goenka with a Banga Bhushan title in a glittering ceremony. Bobby’s daughter incidentally is a high ranking officer in the CESC, which too came under criticism.

Locals blocked streets, and the clubs enjoying the annual largesse from the government turned their heads away.  No Municipal councillors were seen around. Mamata sensed trouble and grudgingly dialled her bête noire, Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, to urgently spare the Army to help clear the roads.

PM Modi immediately visited the cyclone ravaged State and promptly sent over a thousand crores as an advance aid. She and her party men now could not complain of indifference by the Centre. Admittedly, for the poll strategist, the image of People’s Chief Minister has taken a beating and had to be set right.

That is the time a senior cabinet minister, Subrata Mukherjee openly criticised for not taking into board the former Mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay to strategise relief operations. He was also critical over the sacking of the Municipal Commissioner Khalil Ahmed. Similarly, another minister, Sadhan Pandey, faulted Bobby for the mess, tearing his image apart in front of the media. Such acts of bravados are unknown in a party in the stranglehold of its sole leader. 

There are few takers for the CM’s flip flop on the migrant’s train, and her blaming the Railway Ministry, first for not sending enough trains, and now for sending too many trains. The gossip in Delhi is, the return of the migrants have never been a problem for any state, save for West Bengal, which has the most foreigners. Mapping the migrants during their journey is apprehended as giving scope for reopening of the vexed CAA issue. For once Mamata cannot blame her political opponents and is waiting if more dissentious voices are heard.

Safeguarding the CM cannot be done without scapegoating someone else. Prashant Kishore’s team will find it increasingly difficult to find enough scapegoats until 2021.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix