Mamata! You wasted no time in mastering how to abuse power

It's not even two years and the much talked-about 'change' in West Bengal has proved to be a farce. On Sunday, a veteran CPI(M) leader and former minister of the state, Abdur Rezzak Molla, was allegedly beaten up by a Trinamool Congress (TMC) supporter and admitted to the hospital. What was even more shocking was that the entire party stood by the side of the accused.

Dangerous trends

A TMC minister also said that the injured CPI(M) leader was doing drama in hospital and had he been seriously assaulted, there was no question of going to the hospital!

It was also around the same time that another TMC minister, while speaking at a rally, hurled obscene words at opposition party leaders. Neither of the two men who carried out the abuse, physical and verbal, respectively, has done it for the first time. And the state and its people watched with awe that they proudly repeated their acts in the open.

Mamata Banerjee, who toppled a 34-year-long regime in May 2011, has completely failed to give any direction to Bengal. She has only achieved to put in place a government, which is overseen by hooligans and milked by opportunists for their own benefits. There is no vision or direction for the welfare of the struggling state.

In fact, nobody can really expect any improvement from a lot that has no credibility to offer in any form. Even the chief executive of the government, who is also the supremo of her own party, which has no ideological foundation but only populist strategy to fall back on, has proved herself a naïve in every aspect of administration.

Her rule has just been the extension of the disastrous regime of the past. Only the colour of the flag has changed.

What to expect from the leader?

Forget any sophisticated gesture as is expected from a skilled administrator, the Chief Minister does not have minimum training in public speaking. Her judgment is propelled by an unpredictable and temperamental nature and she prefers yes-men to follow her footsteps everywhere.

If this is the kind of leadership that a changed Bengal so desperately aspired for, I am glad that I did not vote in the last assembly polls. If a rotten Left had left Bengal on ventilator, Mamata Banerjee's nearly-two-year regime is clearly finding a great pride in removing the oxygen mask off the dying patient's face.

This is how Mamata wants to build a Golden Bengal?

If Mamata Banerjee, contrary to her preaching that her government will never politically discriminate, continues to overlook her own partymen who regularly spread hatred against opposition leaders, the time is not far when the roads of Kolkata will be left bloodied by 'street justice' and democracy will be murdered at will. It is the irresponsible comments made by the chief executive herself that encourages other members of the party to make equally insensitive comments.

One of the female party leaders recently made a humiliating comment about a rape victim, who was also treated insensitively by Mamata herself.

Only power speaks

Mamata had won a lot of sympathy in the past after the power of the day carried out brutal attacks against her on the streets time and again. But even after the change of guard, history continues to repeat in Bengal. This time, Mamata is at the dictating end.

Last year, when a CPI(M) member was killed in a district in Bengal, pro-establishment media said the victim was involved in anti-social activities. Even if it is true, does that give the ruling party's supporters the licence to kill an individual? Then what was wrong with the previous Left Front government? Or rather, what is right with the Mamata government?

Hatred politics from two abominable political camps

Sunday's attack on Mollah and the disgusting comments made by a CPI(M) leader against Mamata a few days ago raises one question for a Bengali like me: Has our time ended? Will this tit-for-tat politics continue to shame whatever little future Bengal has?

A dead ideology has already killed a bright nation called Bengali. The Left passed on to the new generation a dangerous stagnation under the guise of stability and now its successor, a hotchpotch forum of the useless that speaks of hollow ideology (just anti-CPM) and follows inept leadership, is finishing the task of destruction left incomplete by the Left.

We are just watching a horror. The end is near.