The emperor refused to see he indeed had no clothes on till the little child blurted out the naked truth. In West Bengal, government and opposition have had the mirror held up to them umpteen times; but they are no wiser yet. The state of the state in Bengal has been analysed threadbare and deemed a fit case for Central rule. In handling the Maoists, the state administration has come unravelled, the absurd extent of which was on display last week in the Atindranath Dutta case. But worse was yet to come. On Tuesday, armed tribals led by Maoists seized the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express near Jhargram in West Midnapore, took the driver and his assistant hostage, and demanded the release of Chhatradhar Mahato, leader of the Maoist-backed

People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities. However, the interesting and worrisome subtext of the incident was not so much the final nail in the Bengal administration’s coffin but its implications for Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee and the state’s main opposition, her Trinamool Congress.

After the humiliation of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government, this assault on the Railways should have provoked, at least, strong words from Banerjee. She, however, made the same mistake that the Left Front has been making in Bengal — failing to attach the necessary concern and importance to another instance of Maoists getting their way. That the Rajdhani was stopped by the PCAPA does not wash. If the Trinamool on the one hand and Left Front constituents on the other keep milking the Maoists for local political one-upmanship, it defeats the Indian state’s battle against the insurgents. Banerjee’s first reaction was to blame CPM cadres for blocking the train in order to damage her image. On learning where responsibility actually lay, she declared her readiness for dialogue. Why? Just because the PCAPA and the Trinamool are on record for assisting each other? Because Banerjee feels a sense of indebtedness to or sympathy for them, even when it’s common knowledge that the PCAPA is just a front for Maoists? What will it take for Mamata Banerjee to realise that she too, quite like her political rivals in Bengal, is playing dangerously with fire?

... contd.