Politics is claimed to be a way to devise policies, schemes and run administration for the larger welfare of the society. But, sadly many politicians have maligned it and redefined it as a tool for gaining power and securing their Chair/Post, for which they resort to every dirty trick possible. As the elections for Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) are nearing, Mamata Banerjee is resorting to playing on the fear psychosis, a trick that is very cliché, and has been quite successful for such politicians but devastating for the nation.
CM Mamata Banerjee wants to project herself as the Messiah for North Bengal
The demand for greater autonomy, Union territory or Statehood has been common in India. With this, it is believed that it will result in better administration and proportional representations of the local communities or tribes, which also have a multitude of evidence to back these claims. Evidently, the locals and several organisations in North Bengal have been demanding separate statehood. But this basic and common demand in a democratic country seems to be too radical for the Chief Minister of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee.
While on her visit to North Bengal, Mamta held a rally in Alipurduar. She tried to project herself as the messiah for the region. She claimed that she had done enough for the region and said, “There has been a lot of development in North Bengal in the last 10 years. Now the people of North Bengal do not have to go to South Bengal.”
While attacking the BJP, she tried projecting herself as some kind of Demi-God Politician who is ready to sacrifice everything including her life for the welfare of the region. With this, she tried to ride over a sympathy wave as well as play on the fear psychosis and claimed that she is ready to give her blood and life for the unity of Bengal.
She said, “Before the polls, they said that we will do Gorkhaland. Some people in the BJP are saying that we will make North Bengal separate. We will remain united. As long as there is blood in my body, I will not allow Bengal to be divided. The BJP does the politics of division. We don’t divide, we grow together.”
There is no smoke without fire
Mamata Banerjee seems to be rattled by the demands of citizens of North Bengal. While she made all the clichés of sacrifice, blood and whatnot, the demand has a lot of traction on ground. The Gorkhas have been demanding separate statehood for decades. They have been running a strong Gorkhaland Movement to fructify their demand. Additionally, the Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) swept all 45 seats in the inaugural and only election to the GTA (formed in 2012). The clean sweep of GJM reflects that the people resonate with them instead of the Mamata-led TMC.
Further, the TMC which won the fiercely fought Bengal Assembly elections had to face the wrath of North Bengal people for its step-motherly treatment towards the North region. In 2021 assembly elections, the TMC had to suffer defeat in 30 out of 54 seats in the eight north Bengal districts. In the Lok Sabha 2019 election, it suffered a more humiliating defeat as it lost 7 out of 8 seats.
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While the TMC Supremo and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee may use rhetorical statements to dial down and project the demand as some kind of radical thought, the people of North Bengal have been routing out the TMC, reflecting a stark stand point of the two parties, that is, TMC and the people of North Bengal. Such extreme worded statements loaded with fear psychosis shows how much the CM Mamta Banerjee is rattled and adamant to register a win in the North region, which has been rejecting the mismanagement and cruel rule of TMC.