How Mamata trounced the Left

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Bengaluru: The 34-year-old regime of the Left front has finally crumbled. Mamata Banerjee has created history by winning a majority in West Bengal. It's goodbye to the world's longest serving communist government in a multi-party democratic set-up. Bengal is all set for its first woman chief minister.

Firebrand Mamata impressed West Bengal's poverty-weary citizens with a call for change. Bengalis wanted their state to prosper like the other states of India. Tired of strikes and lockouts, they rejected the red symbolism that had burdened them for decades. They were desperate for some of growing India's shine to rub off on them.

People were so fed-up of Left rule that they blamed the Communists for every malady in Bengal. Left Front rule allowed Bengal to stagnante in agriculture and industry.

So how did Mamata manage a landslide? Not all credit goes to Mamata. The Communists made some huge mistakes. They banned computers, saying it would take away jobs. They also banned English in schools, a step that pushed the state back at least 20 years from where other states stand today. The World Bank in 2009 said Kolkata was the worst major city in India to do business in.

As a result of these blunders, the Bhadralok were fed up with the administration, and many Bengalis felt that they were not equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century.

Today's Calcutta... ooops Kolkata... is a pale shadow from what it was in its glory days. Voters saw the government caught in a time warp, with no intention of moving ahead.

Cities such as Hyderabad and Bangalore surged ahead, attracting India's new breed of entrepreneurs. And what happened in Bengal is baffling: it produced only 16,000 engineers every year, as against a lakh in Tamil Nadu. What was worse, Bengal had no industries to employ them. So it was only natural that Bengal suffered a brain drain.

Clad in a white sari and rubber slippers, Mamata has managed what many in Bengal thought was impossible: bring down the deeply entrenched Left government. Her angry denunciation of the Left's admistration made her an instant hit with the struggling Bengali. She systematically mounted protests against forced land acquisitions.

Once a campaigner against Tata projects in Nandigram and Singur, Mamata today promises Bengal that industry will be a priority. Her manifesto includes some romantic promises: introducing cruises on the Ganga on the lines of what is offered on the Thames in London, converting West Bengal's tea-growing Darjeeling district into the 'Switzerland of the East', and so on.

Let's remember these are not promises that powered her to victory. What brought her to power are (a) the follies of the Communists; and (b) the people's desire for change.

As railway minister, she has showered Bengal with projects. That gave the people a glimpse of what she could do in Bengal if they gave her a chance.

In 2011, Mamata gifted new trains and projects to the six districts of north Bengal. She then proclaimed: "The Railways have invested more funds in these six districts than the State has for the development of all of north Bengal".

With her fiery speeches, she got the Kolkata public on her side. She decried economic stagnation, slammed corruption, and accused the communist government of perpetrating political violence.

'Didi', or Big Sister as she is fondly called, strategised her campaign against the Communists with an emotionally charged slogan -- Maa, maati, maanush (mother, motherland, and people). She positioned herself as a crusader against all that is wrong in Bengal today: wrongful land acquisitions, bad infrastructure, and corruption and stagnation. She went to the aam janta with these issues and promised to set things right.

Maybe her short temper also struck a chord with the voters as they felt she had the spontaneity and the passion to take on the Left. What has also appealed to the voters is her humble background and gutsy will. Voters can see her clout at the centre and hope she can pull up the sagging fortunes of a region that boasted the world's richest city in the 19th century.