Advani’s Kolkata Visit Leaves Mamata In Disquiet  

B Prasant

THE 103rd birthday anniversary of the Jan Sangh leader, the late Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was virtually made into a charade of a show of strength of the ‘unofficial’ BJP state leader, Tapan Sikdar.  The presence of the deputy prime minister L K Advani was utilised to the hilt by Sikdar and his men to chalk one up on the bloc led by state BJP president, Tathagata Roy.  Tension ran high at one point when Sikdar’s men jostled Roy’s brigade out of the front rows of the Netaji Indoor Stadium, and for a fleeting moment one felt that Advani might well have to don his other governmental persona as the country’s home minister, charge-sheet or no charge sheet.

In his speech, Advani reminded the audience how he “missed the Marxists” on the podium, and, wagging a stern finger, he pulled to task these “errant” elements for skipping an occasion merely for the sake of clinging on to “political differences.”  He took great pains to “remind the Marxists” how he himself had “rushed to Thiruvananthapuram” to “pay homage to the memory of the departed CPI(M) leader, E M S Namboodiripad.”

Responding to Advani’s charges, state secretary of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas told PD/INN that none from the state CPI(M) was invited to the function. Biswas added to say, “Had we been invited and gone there, we would have had to iterate our position on the politics and the ideology of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee for, had we refrained from stating our political-ideological stance, we would have committed hypocrisy and insincerity.”

In the city for a day’s visit, L K Advani unquestionably left Mamata Banerjee, the self-confessed “sole leader of choice” of the Trinamul Congress, choking with dissatisfaction. At least she certainly choked up when faced with pointed questions from a section of the media regarding how “unsuccessful she was in negotiating for imposition of President’s rule in Bengal.” The blustering response was, for once, laid bare in its deep networking of the untruth.

The reason was simple enough.  That the switches of the microphones that were inside the Trinamul Congress party office, connected to loudspeakers outside, were ‘on’ was conveniently forgotten and the entire gamut of Mamata Banerjee cajoling and subsequent petulance with Advani’s polite but firm denials came through in clears and audible decibels over the porch of the office where the media men and women had gathered, scenting blood.

Banerjee kept asking for a “level playing field” and pleaded desperately for Article 356, “or least Article 355” to allow the Trinamul Congress-BJP alliance to “drive off the Marxists and Communists” from Bengal, and for ever.  Advani’s short and stiff response was: “Conditions in Bengal did not justify the proclamation of the President’s rule,” and his advice to the Trinamul Congress chieftain was: “Create your own level playing field by going to the people.”  The deputy prime minister chose to ignore the complaining cacophony of other Trinamul Congress leaders who were as miffed at Advani as Mamata Banerjee was.

One recalls that when prime minister Vajpayee had attended a similar session of the birth centenary of S P Mukherjee a couple of years back, he had made it a point to visit, not the Trinamul Congress office, but Mamata Banerjee’s residence, and had partaken of some sweets along with Banerjee and her family.  Had the fiery Trinamul Congress supremo, whose face had disquiet and dissatisfaction written all over it at the end of the day, perhaps hoped for a replay?