Criticise her not

Banerjees intolerance of dissent shows that she remains at the centre of her agenda

With her unerring knack for the absurd,West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered the arrest of a man for asking her,at a public meeting,what she intended to do about farmer deaths. That Siladitya Chowdhury works for the Trinamool Congress did not stop Banerjee from branding him a Maoist,a distinction he now shares with the hapless students who had questioned her on a TV talk show recently. Not long ago,a teacher at a university in Kolkata was arrested for forwarding a cartoon that lampooned Banerjee. Questions are greeted with accusations,any note of dissent is a conspiracy against her government by the ousted Left Front. Indeed,having cut her political teeth in opposition to the Left rule in Bengal,Banerjee has proved that she can match and outdo its excesses. Although this off-with-his-head style of governance has drawn criticism across the country,she remains undaunted.

Bengal is treated like a fiefdom,but Banerjees ambitions now evidently also reach beyond the state. As a fractious ally of the Congress at the Centre,she has often made it clear that she wants to play a larger role in the countrys politics. So far,this has mostly meant blocking key policy decisions at the Centre. Whether it is opposing the NCTC,FDI in retail,a hike in petrol prices or even the Congresss choice of presidential candidate,she has been a strident naysayer,telling the UPA what it cannot do. With the TMC opening up more offices,as in Chandigarh,Banerjees party has also widened its scope of operations. This has not been matched,however,with a widening of its agenda or a deepening of its chiefs political maturity.

Each new autocratic excess in her state is greeted with an outcry and potentially dents her image as a leader in the national arena. But by all accounts so far,Banerjee is willing to neither listen nor learn.