Being out of Bengal for about a month, covering one ‘M’ – the Maoists in Odisha, I realize I have missed out a lot of action in the land of other ‘M’ – Mamata Banerjee. Bengal has become the permanent national headline. Continuous news coverage in the state, both in national and regional media, reveals the bottom-line: Mamata is intolerant, autocratic and inefficient. News stories are revolving around this agenda. Some media houses are covering her from inside the ‘library’ and some are from outside it. Interestingly, there is no dearth of stories for any of them. Everyday issues are being delivered at the doorsteps.
Every morning the columnist in newspapers and every evening the expert panelists on TV channels are dissecting the government’s performance and the trend which its chief minister is following. So many theories are emerging out of it and many are being applauded by the ‘common man’. But what is the root cause of this turbulence in the area of governance? Why are the professors, intellectuals, many who supported Paribartan, anti-establishment activists getting a chance to hit the streets to protest against certain decisions of the chief minister and the government? Isn’t 10 months too early for a state which sent Mamata Banerjee to Writers’ Building with such huge mandate to turn its back to the same fiery lady? What’s going wrong?
In Odisha, chief minister Naveen Patnaik follows a system of addressing the media. When the assembly is in session, he would not speak about anything which he has not told the house. If he makes a statement in the assembly, he will come out and make the same statement, a written one, to the media. When the assembly is not in session and, let’s say, he is chairing an important meeting, his PRO will call the waiting journalists and note down the questions, as many as they have. Naveen will come out of the meeting and answer those questions one by one referring to the note he has prepared and is holding in his hands, will not take any supplementary questions, walk to his car and go home. I don’t know how he addresses the public rallies. I suppose he would be this articulate and adapt this short-crisp-to-the-point approach while communicating to the people as well. In this process, Naveen minimizes the chances of speaking more and speaking nonsense. Though the Odisha television media is in its infancy, still I don’t think any matured media also can catch him at the wrong foot at least in terms of his speech or words.
In Bengal, with due respect to Mamata Banerjee’s down to earth approach in communicating with the people, her audience, Mamata’s big mistake lies in talking much, talking extra. I was covering a government function at Basirhat, a function to launch several government and railways projects in the sub-division. In her speech the chief minister kept on mentioning the achievements of the government. She was referring to a draft of what will be published as a booklet documenting the achievements of her government at the end of a year in Writers’ Building. It was full of brilliant figures and enough to satisfy the people present there. After finishing that part she referred to the Nonadanga controversy without naming it. She assured her government was still against any kind of forceful eviction, but would also not tolerate any NGO bringing people from outside and organizing a movement (something she has done all through her political career). She is free to change her stand after coming to power according to the need of the principles of governance. But then came the moment. She kept on talking. She kept on daring the critics and she went up to the extent of issuing an advisory: there are two or three CPIM news channels. Don’t watch them. It will make you lose your cool and that can disturb your brain. So watch channels like Star Jhalsa, Channel 10. Listen to ‘peaceful programmes’.
My question is why a chief minister should talk about unnecessary things when she was very well boasting about the achievements of her government. Let that be criticized. But people would at least talk about that. She herself had spoilt the game.
Recall any incident be it crib death, Raigunge principal bashing, renaming of Indira Bhavan, Park Street rape, Katwa gang rape, former CPIM MLA murder, cartoon row, everywhere CM’s unwanted comments have aggravated the issues which ultimately went out of control. CPIM probably used to do same things but it was subtle. This government is exposing itself to controversies.
Talking less and working more should be the mantra for the Bengal government.
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