cm-mamata-banerjee-steps-back-didi-takes-over

India, recently, witnessed the biggest electoral festival. While the festival is over, its after effects still find resonance with one’s day-to-day life.

People exercise their franchise in favour of the leader whom they assume to fight for their cause. And political leaders, too, channelise their every move in the direction of the votes, which they need to remain in power.
 
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, in keeping with all too familiar forecasts from sections in her party, apparently stepped back in a matter of 68 hours from her newfound toughness as the head of the state government to crack down on encroachments and illegal constructions.
 
CM Banerjee — seen on live television in the 4pm meeting on Monday at the State Secretariat — took the backseat in a similar exercise at the same venue from 12pm on Thursday. And ‘Didi’— the mass leader took over.
 
The Trinamool Congress chairperson pressed the pause button on the anti-encroachment exercise for a month and offered to accommodate the concerns of those displaced by the drive.
 
“Nobody has given us the right to take away people’s food (livelihood). We do not have the right to render anybody unemployed,” said Mamata at the second televised meeting.
 
Within a span of a few hours, the tough chief minister, who wanted to teach the state’s hawker’s a lesson, came up with a renewed sense of concern for their ‘livelihood’. 

Why this sudden change in stance?
 
It has been learnt that she had convened the meeting after widespread criticism from the party over the visuals of bulldozers pitilessly tearing down structures from where hawkers and vendors made a living for themselves and their families.
 
The chief minister, who has been caustic in her criticism over the years of bulldozer-driven action in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, such as by the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, was suddenly being criticised for the same.

The Left had already started calling her out on the allegedly Adityanath-esque action.
 
Was the surprising change in plan for encroachers based on Opposition’s criticism? Or, CM Banerjee is eyeing her voters?
 
For a chief, it is acceptable to not care about the Opposition’s remarks. But can a mass leader afford to upset her voters? The latter, not by any chance.
 
On closer analysis, the sudden change in CM Banerjee’s decision can be perceived as a balancing act. There is, after all, no point in antagonising those sections of the society that largely stood by her even amid the poor show in 69 of the 125 civic areas of Bengal.
 
“The poorer sections of the urban, semi-urban, and peri-urban centres still voted for Trinamool in large numbers. The hawkers and vendors represent those sections. Each hawker or vendor affected by this impacts the voting pattern of five-seven, even 10-odd diligent voters of their family,” said a ruling party insider.
 
He has said if one goes micro to the extent of booth-level examination of the results in the 125 civic areas, it is clear that the slum-dwelling populations in civic wards backed Trinamool wholeheartedly.
 
A senior on the Assembly treasury benches pointed out that encroachment by hawkers or vendors in urban spaces has been a perennial problem for decades, having proliferated during the Left regime. 

CM Banerjee made a career of standing by such sections whenever stern measures were taken— such as during the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s contentious Operation Sunshine in 1996.
 
“Now, this sudden U-turn (the Monday decision) goes against her very image. It was also strengthening the hands of the Opposition, which was throwing its weight behind the affected people,” he said, referring to the support pledged by the Left and even the BJP on Wednesday.
 
Didi’s intervention without much ado gives one a way to believe that not too much damage has been done already by the crack down on encroachers.
 
Moreover, her decision to not completely walk away from the decision and choosing to enforce a time-out in order to be more discreet about it appears like a well-thought plan, where her image both of a mass leader and the state government’s chief remains intact.
 
However, how much this pause on the eviction drive might make the encroachment problem critical continues to appear as the bone of contention.