Why hers is a plunging stock in urban areas but still a blue chip in villages
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,who completes a year in office on May 20,has given herself a perfect score. It is 100 out of 100,she says. In her report card,everything that her party had promised in the run-up to the 2011 assembly polls is claimed to have been achieved. During the next four years,she plans to merely monitor schemes and initiatives that have already been set in motion.
If one looks at the larger canvas,the picture does not appear encouraging. The Singur stalemate continues. Banerjees government has not been able to implement its first major promise that the land would be returned to farmers. In fact,there is serious debate on whether the government should have gone for an amicable settlement of the crisis with the Tatas instead of taking control of the Singur land. The present stalemate is not helping thousands of farmers who do not have money or land to sustain them. Those who have been the catalysts for a momentous political change in Bengal have been the worst victims.
The Gorkhaland issue is also simmering. Despite the tripartite agreement with the Gorkhas,the bonds are wearing thin. The Gorkhas want new territory from the Dooars and the Terai region to be added to the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling. The passion for a separate state still burns and the formation of a Gorkha Territorial Administration seems to hold no lasting
solution to the crisis.
However,unlike Singur and Darjeeling,Junglemahal can be said to have been a turnaround story for the Mamata Banerjee government. Because of a people-to-people campaign launched by the chief minister,the Maoists have been destabilised and normality has been restored to a great extent. The once-liberated zone has now almost become forbidden territory for the Maoists. New political equations are being forged here,generating hopes of a return to a calmer environment.
The defining image of Mamata Banerjee in office is of an aggressive leader,fighting her coalition partner,the Congress,at the Centre. However,much of her time has been spent in confronting the distortions that had crept into the system over 34 years of Communist rule. And she has achieved the transition without much bloodshed. The violence and political vendetta,which many feared would follow the ouster of the Marxists,have been largely kept in check her government claims it was because of the firmness with which the party was reined in and the clear mandate given to the administration to deal with violence.
While the macro picture in the first year of the government is bleak,at the micro level there have been visible changes Banerjee has set new rules for governance,initiated legislative changes and generated new initiatives. Trade unions of government employees and police personnel have been derecognised,teachers now receive salaries on the first working day of the month and there is a blanket ban on bandhs,hartals and rasta rokos.
Many administrative initiatives have begun to yield results. The introduction of police commissariat systems for Salt Lake,Asansol,Howrah and Barrackpore has led to better policing. There has been a sustained monitoring of the healthcare system through an innovative SMS register government doctors have to text their arrival at the hospital. Banerjee has also invested in the autnomy of educational institutions like Presidency University. With the Left,people witnessed the subversion of public institutions,from the grassroots to those at higher levels. Manned and manipulated to serve the partys needs,such institutions and local bodies had turned into party organs.
Evidently,an element of impatience has characterised Banerjees first year in office,with much of her political energy expended on the Congress-led UPA at the Centre and the CPM in the state. From Centre-state relations to land policies and street demonstrations,she took on all kinds of issues that she believed needed to be overhauled. And she wanted instant results. Good or bad,right or wrong,in this drive,she has vigorously pursued her line,caring little for consensus. Her insistence,for example,on sticking to a policy of no SEZs cost her dearly,as Infosyss venture into Bengal is almost a closed chapter now. Apart from the positive vibes it could have created in industry circles,it had the potential of generating thousands of jobs. But the chief minister preferred to stick to her signature legislations. Such acts,combined with bouts of whimsy,have resulted in her popularity diminishing in urban areas. But it still remains at a peak in rural Bengal.
The stubbornness with which she has engaged with the Centre has yielded some results. She makes the case that her government is caught in a severe financial crisis a debt legacy of over Rs 2,00,000 crore that she inherited from the Left. While the states annual budget is Rs 21,000 crore,it has a debt and interest payment liability of Rs 22,000 crore per annum. How did the Left perpetuate such financial distortion,she asks,and seeks a moratorium on payment liability for three years. While the concession has not been given,she has snatched extra doses of financial grants for the state over the year. She has secured a hike of 16.7 per cent in the annual plan outlay for West Bengal from the Planning Commission,and about Rs 8,000 crore under the Backward Regions Grant Fund for the districts of Bankura,Purulia and West Midnapore. Under the Hills Area Development Project,she has managed to get a grant of Rs 200 crore,and another Rs 90 crore under the Integrated Action Plan. She has also secured an allocation for 4,000 km of rural road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.
Banerjees biggest test lies in the year ahead. With the rural votebank still intact,she hopes to sweep the panchayat polls by year-end. By then,the results of development initiatives and political stability should show on the ground. Or,so she hopes.
