To a non-partisan onlooker, West Bengal today is an enigma. Open any newspaper, a depressingly negative picture of the state of things hits you in the eyes. Law and order has reached a terrible depth, the economy is wrapped in inertia, the goons of the ruling party are playing havoc. And over this general state of ruins presides a feminine Nero, as golden Bengal burns. This is the unrelenting image that the media have been projecting almost since the new government took over. Yet the ruling party won the Howrah parliamentary byelection single-handedly in June, with its voteshare practically undiminished. Then they handsomely won the panchayat elections. What do you make out of this?
Obviously, Mamata Banerjee lacks guile, or tact in common parlance. She wears her heart on her sleeves. It is obvious too that she has annoyed the media deeply. It appears that being a streetfighter, she fails to speak the language understood by the media and the civil society of the urban middle class. Therefore, she’s found to be autocratic and temperamental. But the moot question is...
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