In her present move only those who have fallen out of the coalition band led by the Bharatiya Janata Party have shown more interest as they have no other destination where they can reach. The Narendra Modi government has been in the seat for the past four years with good or bad impact of its governance was so obvious that no political mind could have missed. Yet Mamta Bannerji remained indifferent to it. Only with the increasing intensity of the BJP attempts to nudge her out of Bengal that she suddenly awoke to need to counter the BJP. Or else she would be left without grounds.

She could also see the barren land where the Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone was moving. No alternative to him emerged within the BJP or outside. Rahul Gandhi is now the Congress president. Except his mother Sonia Gandhi no one can see him as an alternate leader. Mulayam Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Lalu Yadav in Bihar have lost their opportunity. Lalu Yadav cannot even contest election for a decade while new leader would be needed within few months. Her chance brightened in a thought that she needed no special quality except ability to prevent dispersal of the anti-Modi vote in various ballot boxes. It alone shows her lack of comprehension of the need for exercise of power and also of political mind of Indian voter.

The Indian voter has shown not only his ability to discern qualities of the leader and what he or she stood for and also courage to experiment with unknown. Mamta Bannerji has been known for too long. She came to political arena in 1984 and attracted attention only because her victory was on ruins of the top Marxist leader Som Nath Chattterji’s defeat. Intensity of her dislike for the left brand politics and politics was virtually bordering to her personal hatred for them. However in 25 years from 1984 to 2009 she had no alternative philosophy to counter the left ideology except her abuses for them. Her repeated failures to move the left even inch backward did not compel her to introspection of her failures. Even as cabinet minister she had approved the draft legislation for reservation of 30 per cent seats to women in all elective bodies. Only after Mulayam Singh and Lalu Yadav opposed the draft without provision of quantum reserved for Muslim women, a realization suddenly dawned on her that one fourth portion of the Bengal electorate was of Muslims. Only then she could point to unfailing sign of lack of development in the state by pointing to the lowest literacy rate.

Both issues helped her to mount the throne in Bengal in 2011. Defeat of the left was more due to redundancy of the left ideology for aspirations of Bengal youth. Mamta Bannerji could not reveal the alternate ideology by which she hoped to deliver development in her state. She adopted belligerence in her attitude to everyone and everything to make up for her other ability lacks. Even school girl was not spared from her wrath as she had courage to use non-complimentary stance that offended sensitivity of Mamta Bannerji. Her belligerence was reflection of her complex of insecurity and inferiority complex. She used threats of withdrawal of support to Man Mohan Singh government too often to have her way. She had her way most times not because Man Mohan Singh was afraid. In fact each threat made Sonia Gandhi to make Man Mohan Singh turn around. He was forced even to put on shelves his important measures of economic reforms in 2012.

Mamta Bannerji has no doubt improve road conditions in Kolkata but rest of the state continues to draw its feet far behind. The person who rose from a humble middle class family and had moved in khadi sari and flat pair of sleepers for 25 years has undergone mental transformation though her attire remained same. She shows her temper even for a delay of half a minute. She never had earlier nor has now her circles where she can relax and ponder over her actions. Her entire mien is of a small time dictator.

Her success was merely due to inability of her opponents to expose her lack of abilities. She walked away from Narsimha Rao in 1996 for he had refused to give her what she demanded. She had two years association with the Vajpayee government also but was not comfortable for position demanded action. The measure of her dictatorial attitude was visible when she forced rail minister Trivedi to step out of the government for having used a sentence that could have been interpreted as a slur on her performance as the rail minister prior to her taking over as the chief minister. While proposing a minor escalation in rail fares, Dinesh Trivedi had merely said that he had to propose the increase as finance of the railways was in ICU. Her party men informed her and she insisted that Trivedi be ousted from the cabinet. She was not willing to accept his apology for misfortunate choice of word though it was not meant as a slur on her performance. Yet fact remained that she was so engrossed in her state politics that she had missed 70 per cent of Cabinet meetings.

Such a person is entertaining ambitions. She finds that most of the parties are reluctant to join her band wagon. She called on the chair person of the Congress parliamentary party. With a beaming smile, Sonia Gandhi turned down her proposal for unity of all secular forces under command of Mamta Bannerji. Mamta was asking the congress leader to surrender status of her party as national party and be a part of assemblage of state parties. That shows the limits of her political thinking.