Let's give Mamata Banerjee a chance

Mamata must be whole-heartedly congratulated and supported. If she errs in future, we must be ready to correct her, says Tarun Vijay.

The euphoric joy spread all over Bengal is simply not for an election win. It's a joy of a second freedom. The 34-year-old Dark Age ended which did everything that was against our grain. Culture was destroyed for a Lenin Sarani infatuation. The poor remained as much in the dock as they were in Singur and Nandigram. Industry vanished and Kolkata became a symbol for all jams -- traffic and development.

It was a day of great significance and satisfaction for me when Mamata Banerjee released my book on Communist terrorism. The Telegraph reported Mamata saying: "I have never got to meet so many RSS leaders, though I have met some individually. You people are true patriots. I know you love the country, you care for even small, remote areas of the country."

The paper further reported:

"Mamata was speaking at the release of the book, Communist Terrorism, compiled and edited by the editor of RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya, Tarun Vijay. Vijay claimed that over 9,000 people died in Communist violence till this June.

'If you vote for the Trinamul, your hands are chopped off; a teacher was done to death inside the classroom before stunned students in Kerala,' he said.

Taking a dig at Leftists and secularists, he said: 'Some people go with candles to the Wagah border, demanding dialogue with Pakistan, but turn a blind eye to what is happening in our own country.'

'Fifty-five districts in the country, he claimed, were in the grip of red 'terror'. Vijay then turned to Mamata, to 'appeal to Bengal ki Durga... to speak'."

I have always seen that in politics there can't be any alternative to honesty, integrity and a simple life. Mamata lives by her own example. It's almost difficult if not impossible to live as simply as Mamata does. It's not a facade, not something for the media show. She lives the way she believes she must live. Her love for her mother, her old archaic Fiat, the small barracked slanted roofed house, middle-class cotton saris, firebrand nature, and above all a zidd. A zidd to do what she feels is right and is in the interest of her people.

None in world can doubt her credibility. Or say she plans to collect hot money. The average, poor, low-income person connects with her. Those who say Mamata is dictatorial, mercurial, can't digest her colleagues climbing up, and is too self possessed, must see their own faces in the mirror.

Her win in Bengal is like some party dislodging the Congress or Left-led fronts and establishing a single party rule.

She did what she did on the basis of a single-minded zeal to uproot the most violent and anti-people rule Bengal has ever witnessed. She waited almost 20 years. Count the days and the party colleagues who lost their limbs and were raped and killed and burnt alive for just being with her.

They insulted Swami Vivekananda, humiliated the memories of Rabindranath Tagore and Syama Prasad Mookerjee, brought Lenin, Mao and Stalin to overshadow Bengal's greatest contributions to the world.

The peasants remained deadlocked in time frame and minorities were given brochures of Left government's propaganda material. The aliens from Bangladesh were guest listed and the nationalist forces were discarded.

Not that Mamata won't play the appeasement card. She will annoy, frustrate, and confuse people who expect her to deliver on the development front and be fair to all. Her connections or a soft corner, as media tells, for the Maoists, and all those things that can still be dug up to dilute the colour of victory, notwithstanding all that, the change is welcome

She has come on her own. No dependence on the Congress. It's a great opportunity and we must not spoil it by playing prophets of doom.

Is it an easy job to win this kind of unwavering loyalty from the common people, men, women and children? She became a phenomenon. Not through a publicity gimmick or hiring ad agencies. By the sheer force of her intense character that epitomises transparency and simplicity.

She was hardly a symbol of achieving growth rates, high-end performances and a star at the sponsored shows of media houses felicitating leaders with sagging images and too keen to advertise their trophies in full page ads billed to the common people.

She didn't care what the media was writing or hired people to ensure media writes in her favour too.

No power on this earth can afford to ignore anything genuine.

That she is nice, honest and means business was enough to have her related with masses and to assure she is one of them.

And here lies the danger.

Can she deliver?

Easy to reign over Writers Building, difficult to maintain the elan and fulfill the promises.

But it doesn't matter, if she ensures that the Left is completely decimated and can't even dream to come to power next time.

This is not the time to rake up issues how micro-level TMC workers would behave after tasting power and how her ministers would obey her or follow her own style.

She must be whole-heartedly congratulated and supported.

If she errs in future, we must be ready to correct her.