Mamata a one-time CM?

SNS, NEW DELHI, 14 SEPT: Unless Mamata Banerjee gives up her whimsical ways and reins in her mercurial temper, she may end up as one-time Chief Minister despite the huge goodwill she got in the last Assembly elections, says a new book on eight contemporary women leaders of India. And that may ensure that her ambition of becoming Prime Minister will remain a pipe dream. 

The book ~ Pandora’s Daughters by veteran journalist Kalyani Shankar (and a columnist for this newspaper) ~ published by Bloomsbury will be released here next Thursday. The other women portrayed in the book are Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati, J Jayalalithaa, Sheila Dikshit, Pratibha Patil, Sushma Swaraj and Mehbooba Mufti. 

The book paints Ms Banerjee as an isolated leader after her Trinamul Congress pulled out of the UPA in 2012. Ms. Shankar writes, “If she had plans to mobilise support from other regional satraps, so far there is no evidence of a pressure group being formed.” The book is pointedly critical of Ms Banerjee’s performance as chief minister. It says: “Two years are too soon to judge Mamata’s governance capacity but so far the signals have been disappointing. Her gaffes and conspiracy theories are a great source of embarrassment to her party and the government. As senior bureaucrats point out, she is in a tearing hurry to do things but they do not move fast enough for her. 

She behaves as if she were a headmistress with her officials. She is looking to announce new projects, programmes and ideas without doing any homework. And she makes it more than clear that she hasn’t reached the top just to listen to others. 

“The problem is that she is still searching for enemies, for people who she thinks are against her and with whom she can pick up a fight. Now that she has the government machinery at her command, she can take on those who criticise her. What better way than to put them behind bars and foist cases against them?”