Some leaders are good speakers, some are bad speakers, and afew are good at messing it up every time they are handed the microphone.There’s a difference between the last two; a difference as yawning as the onebetween, say, Manmohan Singh and Mamata Banerjee.
The former is a bad speaker, rhetorically speaking; thelatter isn’t necessarily bad (neither is she particularly good, by the way) butexcels at losing the opportunity, or dropping a sitter of a catch, so to speak.How else would you explain the West Bengal chief minister’s public address inDarjeeling on Tuesday?
While asserting that the Darjeeling hills would continue toremain a part of West Bengal, she told the crowd at the north Bengal hillstation’s famous Mall: “Let us remain together, Darjeeling is part of Bengaland we will remain together…. There should not be further trouble as that wouldhamper development again.”
Nothing wrong with that. In the backdrop of the Telanganamovement, where Hyderabad and other areas of the region that want out of AndhraPradesh are hurtling into fresher crises every day, these are just the wordsBanerjee’s constituents in Bengal’s plains want to hear. But then heranti-leadership, perennially-opposition self took over the moment there was amurmur of dissent.
As a section of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supportersraised slogans and displayed posters demanding a separate Gorkhaland toward theend of her brief address, Banerjee issued nothing less than a warning.
Visibly angry, Banerjee stood up and warned protesters notto raise such “political slogans” at the programme. “Please remember this isnot a party programme; this is a government programme,” Banerjee said. “I amvery rough and tough in such issues. You are free to give political slogans atparty programmes but this is a government programme….
“Please do not give wrong message so that people will thinkDarjeeling is again going for problem.”
Aside from the incongruity that government and partyprogrammes have never been too far apart for her own party, the TrinamoolCongress, it’s rank bad oratory. It’s plain intimidation ” that, too, from achief minister.
Not that Banerjee arrived in the hills with nothing for thelocal population. Earlier, during her address, she said new tourist spots likeLamahata and Sandakfu had been developed or were being decked up. “Helipads,airports and other world-class facilities will be made available and, afterthat, tourists from all over the world will flock to Darjeeling,” she said,like her typical pat solution for everything.
She also announced that Rs 80 crore had been sanctioned fornational highway-55, the lifeline to the hills from Siliguri in the plains.
Besides, two hydro-power projects were being developed atTeesta and Rimbhi aside from various development activities in Darjeeling andother hill sub-divisions of Kurseong and Kalimpong, she said.
But most of that would not have gone down the throat, letalone the brain or heart, of the locals, especially those opposed to Kolkata’s‘diktats’. Most would remember the chief minister’s threats, wrath andfrustration at meeting opposition. And they would seethe within.
Not surprisingly, GJM president Bimal Gurung, who shared thedais with Banerjee, slammed the chief minister for her angry reaction. “Sheshould not come here and keep saying the region is an inseparable part of(West) Bengal,” Gurung said. Calling her statement “political” and “not right”,the Gorkhaland leader said, “She should keep in mind the sentiments behind ourdemand (for a separate state)… If it is a government programme, as shemaintained, she should not be giving a political speech.”
And he isn't way off mark, for every "government"programme under Banerjee's helm has had her victimhood, following 34 years of"Left rule", writ large.
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