These days Didi is giving Ekta Kapoor a tough competition. Especially what happened after this rail budget, news is giving us more entertainment than TV serials. But at this moment, let us pause a while and take a stock of each player’s gain and loss.
Dinesh Trivedi, Member of Parliament from Barrackpore, West Bengal, was little known in India just one year back. Then Didi made him the Railways minister. Still, like every other member in TMC, he was completely overshadowed by Didi. Now in general, that is exactly what happens in TMC. If you have listened to TMC leaders carefully, every sentence they speak contain "our leader Mamata Banerjee" in a mandatory fashion. Either you stay inside the shadow and do everything in the name of Didi or you face consequences like Trivedi. Not all persons can work in such a scenario where: “If you flatter, you get the chair/ if you not you face the fire”.
After this incident, Trivedi has suddenly become famous all over India. The publicity he has got is close to martyrdom. He himself compared him with Shaheed Bhagat Singh although I personally think that is a little too much. Nonetheless, most people for whom the fare increase is not so much of worry (I guess this will include many people in India) is praising him for the ‘progressive’ budget. At least what is seen in social media, he suddenly has become the hero who fought. Some even seeing a possible PM material in him (at least if you compare him with the muted PM we have now). I think Trivedi had already taken a mental step to go out of TMC. Otherwise he would not have the guts to directly say “You cannot run railways from Writers”. If you judge by the sentiment flowing in social media, if Trivedi quits TMC tomorrow and join any other damn party, he will win from any seat in India.
But alas! The social media is not India and vote cannot be won by a person alone. If you do not have a strong support from the party, there is very little chance that you would be able to do anything on your own. Maybe he didn’t think so far that Didi will raise a whip to all party members to vote against the fare rise. Trivedi is still a TMC MP, and technically bound to vote against himself! Otherwise he would have to resign. This is going to be the exact same scenario we saw a few years back; when then Lok Sabha speaker Mr. Somnath Chatterjee had to resign over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.
Would Mr. Trivedi become irrelevant after this? Or he will rise as an bigger nationwide leader? Would he leave TMC and join some other party? After this incident, Trivedi has got a general acceptance in the mind of Indians; at least among internet using educated India. In this scenario, many party should be ready to take him once he leaves TMC. He might even join Congress but that would require Congress to sever ties with TMC. That is not a very distant possibility given heavy weight Congress leaders attending Akhilesh Yadav’s oath taking ceremony in UP.
Now Let us talk a little about our Didi. Since past few months, grievances started gathering in the minds of people (again, at least middle and upper-class educated people) over the activities of Didi. Take it her loose comments over Kolkata rapes, or suddenly commenting that bank can not seize farmer's land even if debt is not repayed or removing pass-fail from schools. Also many national matters like Tista water sharing pact, Lokpal Bill, FDI etc. were facing huge challenge from Didi and many people was not entirely happy with that. Now after this incident, most of these people started thinking that Didi has gone completely insane. Many people are suggesting that we should seriously send a psychiatrist or Bob Biswas (a character from the film Kahaani) to her Kalighat home. That’s another popular joke I copied from Facebook.
Now the people who know Didi’s politics, are not that astonished. Didi was always like this: authoritarian, autocratic, and whimsical. She has to decide everything ranging from whether India should allow FDI to what color should be painted on the roadside railings in Kolkata. She needs to understand that it is impossible to govern everything alone and at some point of time you need to delegate responsibilities to others and let them work independently. You cannot decide everything madam.
Now after this incident, most of the people are amused with the tamasha. Didi is giving so much entertainment to the nation that TV serials started losing TRP. The congress is probably seriously contemplating the possibility of getting rid of TMC. But why Didi did this? Why this Kolaveri Di(di)?
Satiating the power equation within TMC could be the reason. This message has reached to every member of TMC that in TMC, Didi and only Didi decides everything. Like what Mukul Roy, the next rail minister candidate said, that he is a party man (read Didi’s man) and does not have an independent opinion. In fact he cannot have unless he wants to be a second Trivedi. That Trivedi did not consult Didi before taking such a crucial decision could be one reason behind Didi’s rage.
What Didi seriously achieved in past few months was to be present in national media headlines constantly. Although mostly in a negative light, this presence will help Didi to be relevant in national politics. Another thing is, by opposing this fair hike, didi kept his populist “Maa-Maati-Maanush” image and would be able to portray herself as a leader who really cares for the common man in the upcoming Panchayat election. Didi has also kept her path clear so that she can protest the inflation and oil price hikes in future. Didi simply does not want gift CPM (main opposition in Bengal) a ready made issue. The actual suffering of people is hardly the case because Didi is still mum on the freight rate increase that took place in 1st March. Unlike passenger fares, freight increase affects people more because the price of daily commodities depend on that. Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has already increased prices by Rs 500-1,000 a ton on the back of the freight increase.
In this setting, many people are talking about another possibility. What if the whole thing is a staged drama by both Trivedi and Didi? Increasing rail fare was almost an unavoidable thing now. But how to do that without hampering Didi’s pro-poor (maa-maati-maanush) image? Now after sacrificing Trivedi this way, Didi will keep her image. Will negotiate and have a partial rollback of the increase. Fare will still increase but a little less than what is proposed and Didi will take the full credit of it. No issue will be gifted to opposition CPM before the upcoming Panchayat elections. For the time being, Trivedi will resign but stay with TMC. The image of Trivedi has already shined in middle and upper class India, and after a few days Trivedi will do a little apologize thing and Didi will give him another important post. This is a win-win situation after all.
