Mamata Banerjee Went To Meghalaya To Whip Up A Political Storm, But Ended Up Creating Barely A Ripple

Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee undertook a three-day trip to Meghalaya from Monday (12 December) to sound the Trinamool’s battle cry for the Assembly elections in the hill state early next year. 

But her visit turned out to be quite a damp squib. The newly-formed state unit of her party failed to muster crowds to greet her during her stay in state capital Shillong.

The only evidence of her presence in the scenic hill station were the giant cutouts of the Bengal Chief Minister that sat pretty forlornly by the city’s main thoroughfares. 

There were indications galore that the trip by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek (who accompanied her) would not be even close to the mega political event in the state that it was billed to be. 

Just a handful of people, including senior party functionaries like former chief minister Mukul Sangma and state party chief Charles Pyngrope were present to welcome Banerjee at the Umroi airport Monday (12 December). 

The maiden visit by the chief of a political party that aspires to come to power in the state ought to have generated huge interest and curiosity, if not enthusiasm from the masses. But none of that was even remotely in evidence. 

The highlight of the Bengal Chief Minister’s engagement in Shillong was her address at a party workers’ convention. Her speech, at what was the first convention of workers of the newly-formed state unit of the Trinamool, was meant to enthuse the cadres and gear them up for the poll battle ahead. 

But her blooper-filled, rambling speech delivered in heavily-accented English that was hardly intelligible to the gathering turned out to be very disappointing. So much so that even her party workers and leaders could bring themselves to deliver only perfunctory and polite applause. 

She reserved her vitriol for the BJP, which has only two MLAs in the 60-member Assembly but is a constituent of the ruling coalition led by the National People’s Party (NPP). 

Her repeated and harsh attacks on the BJP as well as Chief Minister Conrad Sangma (of the NPP) left many in the audience squirming in discomfort since politicians in the hill state maintain decorum and refrain from bitterly attacking each other. 

Unlike Bengal, which is notorious for its political violence and for the ruling dispensation’s intolerance of opposition, politicians in Meghalaya conduct themselves in a gentlemanly fashion and political violence is unheard of in the state. 

Commencing her speech with a “many many happy merry Christmas” greeting, the Trinamool chief was at pains to counter the charge levelled by regional parties that the Trinamool was a ‘Bengali party’.

“There is a rumour that All India Trinamool Congress is a Bengali party. We started this programme with the national song (Vande Mataram) written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Was he only Bengali? Rabindranath Tagore loved Meghalaya and came here many times. He also wrote the national song (sic). Was he only for Bengal? Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose gave the ‘Azad Hind’ call to free India. Was he only for Bengal?” she asked. 

“Why do we divide the caste to caste, the religions to religions? Let us walk together, speak together, thin together,” she said. 

But her attempts to alter the perception that the Trinamool is a Bengal-based party failed miserably. Primarily because of her speech in her pronounced Bengali-accented English that only reinforced her Bengali credentials. 

She also tried hard to counter the charge that a Trinamool government in Meghalaya would be remote-controlled from Kolkata by obliquely accusing Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and the union government of running the state government. 

“Why are they ruling Meghalaya from Guwahati and Delhi? When we come to power here, the land of the soil (she meant son of the soil) will rule Meghalaya, not outsiders,” she declared. But she ended up painting herself as a rank outsider.

Banerjee fell back on her favourite political ploy of announcing sops and doles in order to garner popular support. Apart from the promise of Rs 1,000 a month dole to a woman of every household, she also promised doles for students, girls, elderly, farmers, labourers, minorities and other sections. 

She listed out all the doles that she gives out in Bengal and reeled out figures to make the incredulous claim that industrialists and entrepreneurs were rushing to invest in Bengal.

She also made the tall claim that huge employment opportunities have opened in Bengal and lakhs of men and women were finding employment in her home state. 

The Bengal Chief Minister also displayed her ignorance about Meghalaya. She struggled to list out the three major tribes of the state and even termed the Jaintias as ‘Joyonti’. 

Banerjee’s lack of knowledge about Meghalaya’s demography was also on full display when she said that like in Bengal, her party would pay special attention to minorities in Meghalaya. She listed out the measures she had taken for the welfare of Muslims and Christians in Bengal.

Only, she forgot (or was unaware) that Meghalaya is a Christian-majority state and Hindus are in a minority there. 

Listing out her ‘achievements’, she claimed that she had made Kolkata “nice and cute”. And she invited people from Meghalaya to visit Kolkata and see for themselves the “Christmas decorations” in Bengal’s capital and also the “big Haj House’ in Kolkata!

A mid-ranking office-bearer of the Trinamool unit in Meghalaya who attended the convention told Swarajya that his party chief’s speech was incomprehensible and staid. “It was not an inspiring speech and we did not take away anything from this speech. We could not understand most of what she was saying,” said Mark (he gave only his first name) from Tura in Garo Hills. 

Political analyst Donkupar Lyngdoh pointed out that the convention, the first that the Trinamool chairperson addressed in Meghalaya, was held in an auditorium with a capacity of less than a couple of hundred. 

“Any party trying to create an impact would hold its first workers’ convention at a huge venue and pack it with people. And this was the first meeting addressed by the Trinamool chief in Meghalaya. There was no fanfare and the whole affair was dull and uninspiring,” he said. 

NPP leader Julius Marbaniang told Swarajya that Mamata Banerjee’s visit to Shillong only showed that she does not “have skin in the game in Meghalaya”.

“The Trinamool has gained a backdoor entry into Meghalaya and the Bengal-based top leadership of the party have no idea of this state and its politics. They are here only to strengthen their claim to ‘national party’ status. Even they know very well that their party will at best win less than half a dozen seats in the state,” said Marbaniang. 

The Trinamool made a sudden entry into Meghalaya politics when 12 of the Congress’ 17 MLAs broke away and joined the Bengal-based party. The defectors were led by former chief minister Mukul Sangma who was being sidelined in the Congress by the state party chief Vincent Pala. 

Sangma’s loyalists, mostly from the Garo Hills, followed him into the Trinamool Congress and that’s how the Meghalaya unit of the Trinamool was born. Of the 12 MLAs (including Mukul Sangma) who defected from the Congress, eight are from the Garo Hills. 

And of the remaining four from the Khasi & Jaintia Hills, one (Himalaya Shangpliang) has resigned and is likely to join the BJP. 

Political analysts say that the Trinamool will win, at best, three to four seats in the Garo Hills and one or two in the Khasi & Jaintia Hills. 

And like what had happened with its MLAs in Manipur in the past, the Trinamool MLAs in Meghalaya will have no qualms defecting even en masse to some other party in future. 

“That’s because the Trinamool lacks any coherent ideology and, hence, its workers and leaders lack commitment to the party,” said Lyngdoh.