It made no difference when she was in the opposition, promising everything to everybody. She promised full satisfaction and economic benefits to the Nepalis of North Bengal, millions of tribals in south Bengal, two million “Matua” SC community people, over 20 million Muslims, nearly 7 million jobless youths, nearly 1 million state government employees, civic employees, tea plantation workers, railway employees …the list is endless. Such an ambitious catalogue of programmes would have kept a far more dynamic leader operating in a far richer state engaged on a 24/7 basis for about a century!

Now in the administration, she tries to persuade everybody that she can actually deliver on all her promises! A dangerous move, because it is common knowledge that the state is as near as possible to a financial bankruptcy, a fact she herself harps on. Nothing wrong, politicians have been known to be dream merchants, most people know they cannot and will not keep their promises. It may be different with Ms Banerjee because, somewhat remarkably for present times, among her raucous followers, the very young and impressionable actually believe in her and the wild promises she makes, in a literal sense. Her well wishers now worry about her future, especially if the centre does not offer a generous financial package to help the state.

As Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has made it clear several times, the centre would have a problem, because Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, also facing acute financial problems, have not asked for special favours. If the door to official bounty is opened for West Bengal what about other states, all of whom could do with central assistance?

Ms Banerjee plans to run the state as she had been running the Railways until recently, but there is a major difference : the Railways represent a milch cow for administrators, unlike a problem-ridden, economically weak West Bengal. Rebuffed several times by Mr. Mukherjee, she has written to the Prime Minister for help. According to available indications in Writers: Buildings, she has received a positive response as usual. However, the measures for the state would not be called a “package”, to ensure that other states would not ask for the same! Ms Banerjee has always followed the Left parties in her years in the opposition — borrowing their slogans, using their disruptionist, often violent tactics to embarrass and harass the administration.

Now she is following their methods in power as well. In short she expects the centre to meet all the needs of the state. As Mukherjee has rightly pointed out, the share of revenues generated within West Bengal in the state’s GDP is among the lowest in India, less than what is achieved by Bihar or Jharkhand. Policymakers left or non-left, have long ceased to tax even minimally large segments of the population perfectly capable of paying taxes, even higher taxes. The reason is political parties have been working on the basis of nurturing the vote banks for the ruling parties, not trying to create permanent assets at any level.

Accordingly, lakhs of illegal hawkers, transport and auto workers, real estate middlemen, small businessmen like food, vegetable, fish sellers, drivers and others, are allowed to encroach on vacant land, use power illegally, carry on their trade and enjoy all rights of normal tax paying citizens. True, there are no Tatas or Ambanis in their ranks, but then these are not exactly the poorest of the poor by the late Arjun Sengupta’s definition, earning less than Rs 20 a day, either.

Add to this list the poorer elements among the religious minorities and others, and it is easy to understand why no political party dare try to bring them under a tax net.

Not that such economic opportunism pays in the long run, as the Left front found out. Ultimately, development suffers, investments are not made, jobs are not created and what prevails is economic stagnation. People are forced to go to other states for low paying jobs. This has been happening in the state for some years.

As with the Left, Ms Banerjee now wants the centre to help out the state without trying to raise the tax revenue. She has ruled out the imposition of the water tax, insisting that Bengal be made the only state to receive international help for urban development without such taxation on an ”exceptional basis”. Naturally the centre does not agree. Meanwhile urban development has been stalled. She is not allowing any increase in power tariffs for the people, although with coal price increases, generating companies are finding it hard to maintain operations! The state wrote off Rs 75 crore by way of local taxes when she announced that the Rs 16 levy would not be charged on every LPG cylinder! It won her some applause among the faithful but made the task of Finance Minister Amit Mitra very difficult. Already Bengal neck deep in debt to the centre to the tune of nearly Rs 200,000 crore.

It remains to be seen how the centre manages the difficult task of keeping Ms Banerjee happy by meeting her increasingly unorthodox demands. There is also the danger that once propitiated, she may continue to up the ante time and again. On the positive side, her unscheduled visit to hospitals, recent awards to noted artistic and literary figures, and her efforts at solving the law and order problems in the Maoist areas have been received well among the people. (IPA Service)