22 THE WEEK • JUNE 30, 2019
FORTHWRITE
MEENAKSHI LEKHILekhi is member of Parliament • [email protected]Mamata missed the memo
ILLUSTRATION BHASKARANA
fter the high of a long and draining elec-
tion campaign, followed by celebrations
of an incredible electoral victory, it was
time to get back to the earthly ways of life. It was
time to get back to work, to routine, to normal-
cy and to the people. To put it simply, it was
time to get back into the grooves and to begin
performing once again.
I have been among those fortunate who got
re-elected to the biggest panchayat of the na-
tion. However, each one of us in politics knows
well that winning an election is not easy. It re-
quires winning the trust of the people you work
for. Such trust eventually comes from perfor-
mance, at the individual and collective levels.
However, in order to perform in a meaningful
way, you need to go back to
the people, and understand
their needs and fi nd solutions.
You need to engage with
them and make them active
participants in the process of
development aimed at their
own betterment. Th at is the
basics of democracy and
electoral politics. So, heading
back again to the people in my
constituency and to work for
their various needs in this new innings gives me
a sense of pleasure and fulfi lment. It gives me a
chance to renew the trust.
Th e best thing to emerge from the last elec-
tion is that electoral victories in India can no
longer happen on emotive or sectarian calls;
people look to performance. Now, the people’s
representatives will have to perform and prove
themselves to get re-elected. Th is is the best
thing to happen to democracy and this, certain-
ly, is the biggest achievement of the Modi gov-
ernment. However, it seems the message is still
not getting across to some politicians in India.
Mamata Banerjee is one such politician who
seems to have completely missed the writingon the wall. She still believes in the old school
of politics where sectarian ideologies, backed
by organised violence, are the formulae to win
elections. She has been doing that for years and,
in the absence of a strong and eff ective opposi-
tion in West Bengal, has been winning succes-
sive elections. However, her brand of politics has
developed visible cracks.
Mamata’s sectarian ideology and her politics
of appeasement have left the civic adminis-
tration of Bengal plagued with anarchy and
lawlessness. Th e common man is suff ering be-
cause of the organised loot and terror unleashed
by the local syndicates—a euphemism for an
organised system of extracting money from the
local people by the Trinamool Congress goons,
in exchange for facilitating
various services to them. How-
ever, times had changed and
Mamata could hardly realise
this until the BJP had pulled
the rug from under her feet by
winning 18 Lok Sabha seats in
Bengal.
In politics, you cease to
grow if you fail to learn from
your mistakes. A seasoned
leader keeps his ear to the
ground and adapts to the changing trends. But,
Mamata seems to be stuck in the old rut. Th e
various post-election incidents in Bengal, where
violence and terror is being resorted to as a
means to settle political scores, is refl ective of
her old mindset. Th e only means to survive and
play a long innings in politics is—Sabka Saath,
Sabka Vikas. However, Mamata seems to have
overlooked this important lesson. She must pun-
ish the goons, no matter what religious belief
they may hold, and provide safety and security
to everyone in the state without discrimination.
Terror must be substituted with performance.
Else, the people of Bengal would give Mamata a
befi tting reply in the days to come.