But it isn't Mamata alone who is raising the red flag over the moves to acquire land for industrial projects. Even in Gujarat, which takes pride in its pro-development attitude and accommodated the Tatas after their eviction from Singur, groups of farmers are refusing to hand over their agricultural and even grazing lands to the corporate sector. Their slogan, jaan denge, zameen nahin, suggests that the Narendra Modi government will be wary of adopting strong-arm methods against them.

In Karnataka, too, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Siddaramaiah of the Congress, threatened a Nandigram-type agitation to stop the acquisition of fertile land. There are also others like M. Karunanidhi, Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav who see an opportunity to consolidate or regain their political influence by championing the cause of the poor farmers.

So, it isn't only the fear of offending Mamata which has made the centre take a step back. The Congress is not unaware that sizeable sections of people still have strong reservations about reforms, seeing them as a pro-rich process. Though more muted than what such feelings were even five or six years ago, their prevalence cannot be denied, especially in the context of the global financial meltdown.

It is very much on the cards, therefore, that the Trinamool Congress leader will stall some of the government's initiatives on reforms by virtually playing the role which the Left played during the UPA's first term. And since she has a formal alliance with the Congress, the latter will have to try to keep her in good humour.

In this task, the Congress will probably depend mainly on Pranab Mukherjee, who is by no means a staunch reformer like Manmohan Singh or P.Chidambaram. Since Sonia Gandhi, too, has long been trying to win over Mamata, she will also be on the Trinamool leader's side.

On her part, Mamata will have to tread carefully because she wouldn't like to give the impression that she is anti-development. For the moment, her ma, maati, manush theme has paid handsome political dividends. She is so much on a roll that the possibility of her becoming the chief minister in two years' time cannot be ruled out.

Aware that her irresponsible image needs to be changed, she has already declared that her party will no longer call bandhs or cause other kinds of disruptions at the drop of a hat as before. It is for this reason that the Trinamool did not participate in the 12-hour bandh called by the Congress to protest against the attacks on its legislators allegedly by CPI(M) supporters in the Mangalkote area in Burdwan district.

Mamata cannot be unaware that Bengalis once took considerable pride in the fact of their state being at the top of the industrial and corporate ladder, which was reflected in the dazzling lights of the restaurants, night clubs and cinema halls of the Chowringhee-Park Street area.

The dimming of those lights followed the flight of capital after the ascent of the Left to power in the Sixties and Seventies. If Buddhadev Bhattacharjee's efforts to reverse the process did not succeed, the reason is that he went about it the wrong way, excessively pampering the private sector and cowing down his opponents by using the Marxist cadres, as in Nandigram.

Mamata gained from these flawed policies, but in the process acquired the burden of allies like the Maoists and the Socialist Unity Centre, who have little time for the parliamentary democratic system. Her first job will probably be to dissociate herself from them, as she has partly done by forsaking the agitational path, and then she will have to spell out whether ma, maati, manush will be the end-all and be-all of her policies or there are other aspects as well, including the setting up of industries.

As of now, no one knows whether she has the intellectual calibre to follow a line different from the kind of recklessness with which she has been associated so far. Till now, her sole objective has been to fight the Left. She showed remarkable determination and even physical courage in doing so.

But, now, having had a fair degree of success, she has to convince the people of West Bengal that she has an alternative to merely opposing the Left while pursuing Leftist policies herself.

Mamata's main problem is that she is a loner. She built her party all on her own after leaving the Congress and she still doesn't have a No. 2 - not even a distant one - in Trinamool. So much so that she grabbed the cabinet post at the centre only for herself, leaving the others to be ministers of state.

Such an intense preoccupation with oneself may be all right for an opposition leader, but not for an aspiring head of the government. (IPA Service)