Mamata Banerjee Is Unfit To Lead INDI Alliance — Pawar And Lalu Need A Rethink

The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, ridden as it is by many contradictions, is facing a leadership issue now. 

Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee’s statement last week expressing her willingness to lead the alliance has triggered a churn in the grouping. She had said that since the Congress has failed to act as an effective bulwark against the BJP, she would not mind taking control of the reins of the alliance. 

Mamata Banerjee’s desire for assuming leadership of the alliance was endorsed by the bloc’s key non-Congress satraps--Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav. 

The Congress leadership remained silent on the issue initially, but when the chorus in favour of Mamata Banerjee started getting louder, it got its second-rung leaders to voice support for Rahul Gandhi. 

It is learnt that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, acting on instructions from Sonia Gandhi, reached out to Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, Samajwadi Party leaders and a close aide of Lalu Yadav, requesting them to mute their demand for a change of the alliance’s leadership. 

That move, however, has not yielded the desired results. Leaders of these three parties have reportedly told Kharge that there is an urgent need to have a relook at the alliance’s leadership.

“Mamata Banerjee, given her vast political experience and her huge success in fighting off the BJP in Bengal, is best suited to be the leader of the alliance and give it renewed vigour. She knows best how to ward off the challenge posed by the BJP,” a senior leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) who was a Rajya Sabha member and is part of Lalu Yadav’s inner circle told Swarajya.  

Enthused by support from key INDI Alliance partners for their party chief, Trinamool Congress leaders have upped the ante. Trinamool parliamentarians have been speaking to INDI Alliance partners and even some Congress leaders explaining the need to make Mamata Banerjee the leader of the bloc. 

The basis of the demand for putting Mamata Banerjee in the opposition alliance’s driver’s seat is that the Trinamool chief has humbled the BJP in electoral battles in Bengal. Those who support her say that she has successfully warded off the BJP’s challenge and defeated the saffron party at the hustings multiple times in Bengal, 

Why Mamata Banerjee doesn’t have what it takes to be INDI Alliance leader

However, while Mamata Banerjee has been successful in keeping the BJP at bay in her own state and has the highest strike rate against the BJP amongst all constituents of the opposition alliance, this alone does not qualify her for the post of leader of the alliance.

In fact, there are many other factors that disqualify her from that post. The foremost among them is that while she has been successful in defeating the BJP multiple times in Bengal, her efforts to spread her wings beyond the boundaries of Bengal and take on the BJP in some other states have been spectacular failures. 

Mamata Banerjee, in her quest to make the Trinamool Congress a national party (it no longer is one because it has failed to garner the required vote share beyond Bengal), had forayed in Manipur, Goa, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam. 

She engineered defections from the Congress to form her party units in those states and invested a lot of time and resources in contesting elections in those states. She, and the top leaders of her party, even campaigned extensively for her party candidates in the Assembly elections in them. 

But her efforts came a cropper after she vainly boasted that her party would form the governments. She faced humiliating defeats in all the states and except for Meghalaya where her party unit is still alive, albeit barely, the Trinamool is defunct in the other states. 

This proves that Mamata Banerjee’s appeal is limited to Bengal, and Bengal itself.  

People of the rest of the country do not attribute any leadership skills to her and she is seen as a quixotic politician who is prone to shooting off her mouth, flying off the handle and as a failure in governance. 

Also, what Pawar, Yadav & Co. must also seriously consider is how she wins elections in Bengal. Pre-, and post-electoral violence in Bengal under her watch has besmirched the image and name of the state. 

The Trinamool Congress, as is widely known and acknowledged, wins elections in Bengal through money and muscle power. Opposition candidates, leaders, functionaries, election agents and supporters are threatened, beaten up and forced to bow to the dictates of the ruling party in the state. 

Not only the BJP, but also the Congress and the Left have been the subject of violence, threats and intimidation by the Trinamool election machinery. 

Admittedly, the Left institutionalised these electoral malpractices. But the Trinamool has made it much worse and the intensity of poll violence has gone up manifold under the TMC government. 

Another reason why Mamata Banerjee wins elections in Bengal is her policy of Muslim appeasement. Muslims form a little over 30 per cent of Bengal’s population now, and it is the overwhelming support of Muslims that keeps her in power.

Her doles to various sections of the population, which have pushed Bengal deeply into debt, also help her win elections. But they have pauperised the state. 

Under Mamata Banerjee’s watch, the social and economic decline of Bengal that started during the mid-1970s has only gained pace. She is widely perceived as anti-capital and having driven out Tata Motors from Bengal’s Singur in October 2008, she is viewed with distrust by investors. 

Bengal under Mamata Banerjee is not seen as investor-friendly, more so because of the rent-seeking politicians who populate her party. That is why she has failed to attract investments, especially big-ticket investments, to the state. 

Not only that, her policies, misgovernance and failure to arrest the deteriorating law and order situation in Bengal has also led to companies and businesses relocating to other states. 

Crime, especially crimes against women, have increased under her watch.

Add to all this the fact that Mamata Banerjee is not a politician who is accommodative and displays team spirit. 

For Mamata Banerjee, it's always ‘my way or the highway’. Her own party leaders privately admit that she is impetuous and authoritarian, and does not take kindly to those who voice dissenting opinions. She cannot take criticism and none in even the top leadership of her party can dare to voice an opinion that does not match hers.

This makes her eminently unsuitable to be made the leader of the opposition alliance. If made the leader, she is likely to clash with not only Congress leaders, but also other regional satraps. 

That’s why putting Mamata Banerjee in the cockpit of the INDI Alliance, even as a co-pilot, is being seen as an unwise choice.