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Not there yet

The TMC has brighter prospects after winning West Bengal, but Delhi is still far away.

In July, when after her resounding success in Bengal elections Mamata Banerjee told the media in Delhi that she was a mere cog in the anti-BJP wheel even a nitwit knew she was testing waters. Three months later, the Trinamool Congress mouthpiece Jago Bangla projected her as the woman behind the Opposition wheel who could take down Narendra Modi in 2024 general elections — dismissing Rahul Gandhi’s claim to it all. But can she do in Delhi what she did in Kolkata? The TMC has no doubts that with the help of team PK — read Prashant Kishor — she will succeed where Jyoti Basu and Pranab Mukherjee failed. No doubt the TMC think tank is walking on a presumptive trajectory. According to them, in the absence of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Banerjee has emerged as the undisputed leader of Bengal with 42 parliamentary seats. Bengal is the third largest State after Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48) in terms of the MPs. The TMC is convinced that her thumping success in Bengal and Rahul Gandhi’s repetitive failure elsewhere to jack up a decomposing Congress keeps her ahead of the grand old outfit.

However, the proverbial “pros” notwithstanding, the bacterial “cons” may erode Didi’s prospects because winning Bengal and grabbing Delhi are different ball games. First of all, she has to offer a viable Bengal Model for PM Modi’s Gujarat Model. Industry is her Achilles Heels. Despite her having “convened” yearly global business summits with huge fanfare, the resultant investment is in the vicinity of a regulation zero. Back from one such summit meeting in Kolkata, a mighty big industry captain from Gujarat privately told his board of directors that investing in Bengal was equivalent to putting necks on railway tracks. Didi must be running her ploys in Singur and Nandigram that brought her to power but that remain the cause of her biggest woes as a Chief Minister. Secondly, though Banerjee has blasted Modi for selling out national assets and cutting down Government jobs, her own Government is responsible for eating up more than 5.5 lakh posts. Unlike Jyoti Basu, who commanded respect by his politics, trustworthiness, untainted image and age, the contemporary heartland politicians with their own ambitions and personal ego may not accept Mamata’s suzerainty. Hence Delhi is very much visible from Kolkata but it is still far away. Dilli abhi door hai, Didi!