gfiles magazine

April 9, 2012

Follow me or get lost!


Follow me or get lost!
Mamata Banerjee flexes her muscle by getting Dinesh Trivedi to resign, thereby pre-empting his game plan to split the Trinamool Congress

 
THE equation the Congress had with the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee has taken a sudden, unforeseen turn from the time Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi placed his maiden rail budget in the Lok Sabha. The situation, however, is almost a repeat of what happened in 2008 except for the end result. That time Prakash Karat had to bow out; this time Mamata Banerjee is still going strong.  
 
Mamata Banerjee wants to make the Left redundant in Indian politics. She intends to do that by copying everything that the Left used to do. And that has made a confrontation between her and Manmohan Singh, the top neo-liberal leader in our country, inevitable. In 2008, Karat took on Manmohan Singh and tried desperately to stop the ‘operationalisation’ of the Indo-US nuke deal. Up to a point, he even got support from Sonia Gandhi who was keen to avoid a showdown. But finally, Karat lost out to an obdurate Prime Minister.
 
This time Mamata has taken on Manmohan Singh by stalling his favourite policy decision, opening up the retail sector for FDI. This time again, the Samajwadi Party is ready to be the saviour of the government. And again, for the time being, Sonia Gandhi has not allowed a showdown with Mamata. The rest – the controversial rail budget and its fallout, or skirmishes over RS candidature in Bengal – are just spin-offs.
 
This time, Dinesh Trivedi was the chosen one of the Prime Minister to repeat the performance of Somnath Chatterjee in 2008. The goal then and now was the same: to free the government from the strain of conscientious pro-poor forces. But four years ago, Singh clashed with an ideologue who had little knowledge of realpolitik. This time, he is facing a hardcore political leader. She has won round one, but many more rounds are to go.......READMORE : http://www.gfilesindia.com

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