Martyrs’ Day Rally!

Martyrs’ Day Rally!

Mamata Banerjee has been deftly utilising Martyr’s day, a day to remember those Congressmen (Not Trinamool Congress’s) killed in police firing in 1993 when they reached the writer’s building to protest against the introduction of voters’ ID for exercising franchise in the elections. Mamata Banerjee was in the Youth Congress then and was observing the day in memory of those killed and considered it appropriate to carry it along when she quit the Congress party and founded the Trinamool Congress. Worthy of mention is Shri Manish Gupta, MLA in Trinamool and minister in Didi’s Cabinet, and later an M.P. in Trinamool was the Chief Secretary during the Left Front government during the firing.

Mamata has been suddenly feeling the heat from the closing in of the ED on her party leaders and her nephew over the coal scam and the recruitment scandals plaguing the State. Didi is also peeved at how the BJP pulled the rug from under the opposition by announcing a tribal Presidential candidate, opposing who would have had backlash from the tribal voters’ in the State. Mamata is slighted with the selection of the opposition vice presidential candidate and losing her importance as the face to dethrone Modi and the BJP in 2024.

Mamata’s attempts to make a presence in Tripura, Assam or Goa resulted in a nought, and her campaigning for Akhilesh failed to evoke any favour from the U.P. voters. Moreover, the confusion created by her party M.P. Mahua Moitra over Kali neutralised any advantage of Nupur Sharma’s statements on the Prophet. Didi had to undo the damage to her party’s image strongly and decisively, and the Martyrs’ day, held now after two years of hiatus due to Covid, was the best opportunity to do so.

The party worked hard and went an extra mile to make this Martyr’s day the greatest to take on all opponents and to send a message to her likely future allies. The lashing rains didn’t dampen the spirits of a million plus gathered to hear Didi at Dharamtala, Kolkata. The speech was a bit lacklustre, with usual barbs against the Centre, which was, according to her, the main villain, blocking the growth of West Bengal, holding funds, selling companies and finally changing the profile of the Indian Army with the much debated Agneepath scheme.

Even as Didi was addressing the mammoth rally, her sponsored candidate, Yashwant Sinha, was speedily sliding in the presidential election results. Didi realises the NDA’s strength and her weakening position beyond the borders of Bengal, evident from her repetitive rhetoric of sloganeering from the early years, chiding the price rise, especially of the cooking gas, unemployment, and GST on pre-packaged food etc.

Mamata Banerjee held puffed rice (Muri) aloft to question the GST on the poor man’s munch. She ridiculed the GST on the wood to cremate the dead as well and criticised the value of the Rupee, unconcerned about the crowd’s disinterest in macro-economic issues. The cadres came merely to see Didi roaring once again and were happy at the free-flowing egg, rice and chicken from the hundreds of kitchens set up for the day. Many had arrived a day earlier and were camping in many makeshift venues.

It seemed that youths, who formed the majority of the assembled crowd, were in some form of earning to sustain for now. So besides the sloganeering against the Centre and her predecessors, the CPI(M) in particular, Didi must urgently look for some big-ticket investments in West Bengal.

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix