Minister Mamata

No more doodles of wilting flowers on writing pads, no more fits of versifying or bouts of sulking in Kolkata. Mamata Banerjee, the newly installed minister of coal and mines, is back among the soundbites in the Capital, vowing eternal loyalty to the NDA government and everlasting protection to workers in the mining sector. Which is, of course, as it should be, especially with the prospect of elections in the air. But Prime Minister Vajpayee has, in the process, subtly sent home a message to his once-recalcitrant Trinamool Congress ally that choosing ministerial colleagues is a primeministerial prerogative and that he will not be corralled into giving anyone a portfolio of their choosing if he doesn8217;t consider it necessary. Today, Mamata Banerjee has seized with both hands the very same portfolio that she had earlier sniffed at, and she even makes cryptic observations about the importance of being self-driven about work.

The portfolio Mamata Banerjee had really wanted, and had fought long and hard for 8212; behind the scenes of course 8212; was that of railways. And for the wrong reasons. She perceived it, or at least gave the impression of perceiving it, as a source of perpetual largesse that she could then use to woo voters in West Bengal. There was also that other well-publicised temper tantrum over the favouritism the Centre allegedly displayed to her then estranged party colleague, Sudip Bandopadhya. None of this temperamental behaviour helped her reputation, either politically or personally. But some good did come out of Didi8217;s self-imposed sanyas: she attained nirvana. The message that politics is also about accommodation and making use of the opportunities that come one8217;s way finally went home.

But the story doesn8217;t end here. Today, it is not Mamata Banerjee who is throwing the sulking fit, it8217;s Karia Munda. The erstwhile minister of coal is clearly upset at being so rudely disturbed and now mutters darkly about how it is his good work against the coal mafia that has done him in. Someone should tell the new minister of non-conventional energy about the importance of conserving his energy.