Mamata's resignation drama is more of a political act

Mamata's resignation drama is more of a political act
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI/ CALCUTTA, DECEMBER 4: Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee took the moral high ground for a few minutes as submitted her resignation to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee this morning over Saturday's train tragedy. The resignation was promptly rejected by the Prime Minister.

While the minister's aides and officials in the railways ministry viewed the resignation attempt as a calculated move to pre-empt a ruckus in Parliament or as another of the Trinamool Congress chief's stunts, political motives were read into it in Calcutta.

That the CPM in West Bengal smelt politics in Mamata's move was evident when the party changed its demand for her resignation overnight and got Jyoti Basu to accuse the ``the railway minister of shirking responsibility''. ``Her running away will not be of any help to the long, unresolved problems of the railways,'' Basu said at a press conference in Calcutta today.

``It was proving difficult for the railway minister to discharge her official duties along with her hectic political activities. The railway minister's job entails much more than flagging off trains and painting railway coaches,'' Basu said.

With assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled to take place in a few months, two ``developments'' were anticipated. The street talk was: ``Will she or will she not ?'' Will Mamata quit her ministry and devote herself wholeheartedly to state politics? Whether Vajpayee accepts her resignation or not, Mamata is expected to spend more time within the state as the election draws close. She needed an opportunity to do that and the accident followed by the criticism provided her with one.

Over the past couple of months the CPM has ``captured'' one village after the other in Keshpur-Garbeta-Pingla belt in Midnapore, seriously jeopardising Trinamool's electoral prospects. Senior officials in the administration admit that the Panskura Lok Sabha bypoll has shown that whoever keeps ``control'' over the villages wins the election.

With Trinamool having a decisive edge in districts including North and South 24-Parganas, Calcutta, Howrah and Nadia, the outcome in Midnapore-Bankura-Hooghly belt becomes crucial for Mamata if she is to make a match out of the 2001 contest. ``If she is bogged down with the ministry, the CPM will rout the TMC in the rural belt with its better organisational network and with the administration on its side,'' said a Left Front leader. On her visit to Keshpur on the day of the accident, Mamata gave enough hints that she will do everything to recapture the ``lost'' villages.

Her second compulsion of coming out of the ministry or for that matter from the NDA is prompted by sheer ballot counts. The past several elections -- the last municipal polls in particular -- have proved that an alliance with the BJP has not proved substantial in terms of winning seats for Trinamool. Should there be a ``mahajot'' of TMC-Congress-Saifuddin combine, it will anytime be a more viable proposition for her to take on the CPM. Such a combination can also give her the much sought after support of the Muslims.