Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Mamata Banerjee expects the government to be taken in by the Trinamools tweet nothings,in which it has claimed to have eternally supported the Centres exclusive right to make foreign policy. After the embarrassment that she caused during the prime ministers visit to Bangladesh last year,the tweets put out by her party are absurd. But an even stronger adjective must be sought,because she expects the absurdity not to be noticed,and she may not be disappointed. Bizarre? That fits the bill. A government that takes her blandishments at face value,after the treatment it had received at her hands last year,has to be pretty bizarre.
Politics will become stranger still as an election that nobody is prepared for looms nearer,and strangers and estranged parties are desperately propositioned to be bedfellows. The UPA is in need of allies. The Trinamool Congress will also need friends if the general election does not turn out to be a Modi versus Rahul tournament,and there is room for other fronts. That is why it took care to riff on two notes,making up to the UPA while assuring the DMK that it feels for it. The party is uneasy about having no say at the Centre and misses the heft of the railway ministry and the developmental backing of the Centre. It yearns for poriborton .
These political objectives are obvious and legitimate. But the manner in which the Trinamool is moving to secure them is brazen. Apart from the embarrassment that Banerjees recalcitrance over the Teesta issue had caused the UPA,India failed to deliver on an international agreement. If the UPA is prepared to suspend its disbelief on the Trinamool now,it will have only itself to blame.
