It would not have mattered if she was doing this in an individual capacity. But fortunately or unfortunately for Bengal, she is the Railway Minister. She is an elected leader of the people. So are the members of the council of Ministers in West Bengal.

Given the country's federal political set-up, central and state authorities are required to implement development policies and strategies in tandem, not in conflict. In a vast multi-party democracy that prevails in India, this is not only natural and proper, the continuous interaction between the Centre and the States is always desirable.

Through her pathological intransigence towards the State Government, Ms Banerjee is clearly transgressing fundamental constitutional provisions and administrative requirements that govern the activities of Union Ministers. Through her actions, not only the groundwork is laid for an unnecessary confrontation between the Centre and the State, but even basic economic development is being affected. This may not matter to Ms Banerjee who along with her followers drove out the Nano small car project from the state, reducing over 1200 peasant families at Singur to beggary and starvation.

While no one doubts her wholehearted commitment to ”pro-poor” causes after Singur, there are alarming signs that she has not really learnt from her experience and that she plans to wreak more damage to the state's fragile economy, in her quest for more votes! There is no other explanation for the stubborn refusal for a handful of Trinamool Congress supporters who have held up Power department staff from planting only three poles on a plot of land at Rajarhat, to lay overhead transmission lines. In consequence, a large number of domestic and industrial connections have been delayed for over a year. Investments in IT have been held up, and people cannot move into their assigned flats, because there is no power. Repeated requests from the government to Trinamool leaders, from Ms Banerjee downwards, have brought no response. This, from the leader of a party who always says: “I have never opposed industries” at every gathering post Singur, the sure sign of an uneasy conscience — and then proceeds to sabotage every project that involves a takeover of land, even after high compensation to farmers.

Negotiating, or even initiating talks with Ms Banerjee is not exactly an experience people would relish, as State Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee learnt during his Raj Bhavan meetings with her. State Minister for Housing Gautam Deb, a braver soul than Bhattacharjee, nevertheless took the plunge and patiently talked to her on the phone, after several refusals recently, to discuss the matter of the three electric poles.

They spoke for nine minutes. Deb explained the position, pointed out that now instead of objecting to 21 poles, people were opposing three poles only, and not listening to reason! Ms Banerjee listened, promised to look into the issue, asked him to write to her, but remained non-committal regarding his invitation to her to attend a function.

When Deb informed the press about his difficulties and her conversation with Ms Banerjee, all hell broke loose. She denied the conversation, called Deb a liar twice, and said there was no question of any co-operation from her. It was the revival of the nightmarish negotiations over the Singur car plant all over again. Clearly, West Bengal must suffer far more to bring Ms Banerjee to power, even at the cost of further economic miseries to thousands of people, never mind the loss of Nano.

Deb countered with a press conference of his own in which he gave details of his talk, said his call had been recoded officially and raised some pertinent questions. Is this the way Ministers at Centre and in the States were supposed to function under the Constitution, he wondered. What example was the Railway Minister setting? What kind of co-operation she expected from the opposition if she was ever elected to power?

Naturally, there has been no answer from either Ms Banerjee or her party, to these questions yet.

Deb's press conference did some good in exposing the kind of “leadership” people could expect from Ms Banerjee if she ever became the Chief Minister which is a strong possibility. Major newspapers have condemned the Trinamool's destructive non-cooperative attitude already. Her rudeness and intransigence embarrassed even sections of her party followers, who remained silent.

All in all, Ms Banerjee seems to symbolise what the astute left observer Dr Ashok Mitra had said about her. For all her talk about “restoration of democracy“ in Left-ruled West Bengal, she remains a fascist to the core. And it is not just Dr Mitra alone, now Kabir Suman, Trinamool MP from Jadavpore, said that there is no democracy, only corruption, in the Trinamool Congress, as he threatened to resign his Lok Sabha seat. And he stuck to his stand despite the open browbeating from other party “leaders”, at the behest of their supreme leader at Rail Bhavan. (IPA)