The vitriolic campaign which the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has launched against Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress government is part of his much bigger strategy to prove his invincibility for his party.
Shah has been a known baiter of Mamata and ever since the Modi government came into power he has launched a multi-dimensional front against her. Defeating her party would boost his political credibility and the image of the party more than what they received after trouncing the Congress twice. While the Congress was already suffering with credential crisis, Mamata enjoyed the trust of the people as the honest politician.
In the initial stage of his tirade against her, Amit Shah used the Ponzi scam to smear her image, but it miserably failed to have any significant impact. His attempt to project her is the kingpin of the scam also could not cut much ice. Realising the futility of his strategy, he changed the track. But this also does not prove to be of much help.
Though for his acolytes, Shah is the re-embodiment of Chanakya, his recent failures has considerably eroded the trust level of his party colleagues in him. He had created an impression amongst his party colleagues that the citizenship issue would boost the image of the party. He could not however comprehend the intensity of the protest and alienation of people.
TMC winning three by-elections some months back has made it clear that some kind of new war strategy has to be evolved. In this backdrop, sure of inability of the party to defeat the Trinamool Congress at the ensuing assembly polls, with Mamata Banerjee continuing to have control on state power, Shah has launched an all-out war against her. His sending three teams of the central officials to evaluate the work of the TMC government in fighting corona is a part of the design.
Shah’s attack has at least two distinct strategical dimension; first , to repair the erosion of credibility he suffered in the party in recent times and second, to get rid of Mamata before the assembly elections are formally announced in Bengal.
His letter to Mamata Banerjee coinciding with the visit of the third team of central officers is quite significant. It sends the message that the situation is quite acute and needs a thorough probe. The investigations made by the earlier two teams are not sufficient. It would not come as a surprise if Shah decides to send more teams in future. The primary task of these officials is to do the spade work for dismissal of the Mamata government. Already the Governor Jagdeep Dhankar has sent the message across that Mamata has failed to run the government and manage the state.
Late Friday evening, Shah had sent a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee complaining that the Bengal government was not allowing migrant trains to reach the state. The fact of matter is the state government has already made request for trains but the railway ministry had not taken any decision. On Saturday afternoon tweeted that “after request of Hon’ble HM” (home minister), the Bengal government approved eight trains for migrants”.
The state home secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay has already responded with a tweet: “Ministry of Railways tweet is misleading and incorrect. All the trains mentioned in their tweet were approved and communicated to the concerned states on 8 May (yesterday) or before, no new decision in this regard has been taken today. Further decisions to follow in due course.” Never in the past veteran officials say any such instance had taken place where railway ministry had made public statements against a state government to save the face of a minister who has no connection with the utility.
Transportation of labourers who were caught in various states, due to the wrong policy of the Union government, has been a contentious matter. The centre was reluctant to come to their help. If Modi government was really sensitive, Shah should have suo matto taken up this matter with railways. During the last one month the sufferings of migrant labourers has taken centre-stage as questions were being raised on why Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24 on a four-hour notice without any measures to cushion the vulnerable sections from the fallout.
The letter from Shah made it clear that the BJP has decided to indulge in nasty politics, malign the image of Mamata government and turn the tables on the state over the migrant labour issue. the Trinamool Congress’s leader in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien said; “I have been studying him (Shah) closely for long. This is part of how he operates. He spreads division through promotion of bigotry and hatred. He goes quiet and withdraws from the scene when there are real questions to be answered. Then he seeks to confuse from behind the scene.
Meanwhile Mamata’s nephew and an MP Abhishek Banerjee retorted back his allegation; “A HM (home minister) failing to discharge his duties during this crisis speaks after weeks of silence, only to mislead people with bundle of lies!” He also said; “Ironically he’s talking about the very ppl who’ve been literally left to fate by his own Govt. Mr @AmitShah, prove your fake allegations or apologise”.
The fact that the BJP narrative didn’t have many takers became clear when Mamata’s rivals CPM and Congress which have always alleged of a secret understanding between the ruling parties in Bengal and at the Centre, virtually echoed Trinamool on Shah.
The intensity of the hate campaign and personal enmity against Mamata could be gauged from the remarks made by the state BJP leaders: “Bengal is now a separate country, and Jihadi Momota is the Prodhan Montri Indian constitution does not apply in Bengal – and our SC has not guts to take suo moto cognizance of her brazen defiance”
Not only the Trinamool leaders, even common people have started questioning the stand of Amit Shah. They have been citing ill treatment meted out to the labourers in Gujarat by the state government. This was for the third time the labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were brutally beaten by the Gujarat police for demanding their return. Since this is the state of Modi and Shah nobody dares to raise any question. People ask; why Shah is not seeking any clarification from the CM of Gujarat.
Even Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has been reluctant to accept the Bihari labourers. But at no stage Shah wrote any letter to him. Did at any stage Shah ask for any support from Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh in helping stranded migrant workers from West Bengal? The answer is simple no. If he had done this, the labourers must not have resorted to protest.
As if launching insinuation is not enough, the BJP has come out with the demand of CBI probe into ‘anomalies’ in PDS. It claimed that a section of poor people in the state are not getting foodgrains and starving. They were suitably supported by the Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar who on Monday wrote a letter to Mamata Banerjee, saying; “The situation of PDS in the state has reached alarming levels of concerns”. The centre and its appointed Governor have joined hands to weaken the hands of the West Bengal Chief Minister when she is busy in fighting the Covid virus in the state and needs all possible assistance from the Centre. (IPA Service)
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