Category: Non-fiction
Rights: All rights available
Who is India’s only woman chief minister today who fought her way up the political ladder on her own steam, with no political godfather, no political inheritance and no deep pocket patronage? No prizes for guessing: Mamata Banerjee aka Didi.
2024 could be the final frontier in her political career, the year of a do-or-die election that may catapult her to the political high table, as king-maker or as king. Or it could demolish her into an also-ran, a star of high promise who fizzled out.
How wide is the gap between the cup and the lip? Will Mamata Banerjee buckle under the force of central agencies probing charges of corruption by her party leaders? Or can she survive that to join or even lead an Opposition formation to take on the BJP? Will her pro-minority stand pay off or cost her when soft Hindutva seems the mantra for many.
A lot will depend on the BJP and lessons learnt from 2021 when its anti-Mamata strategy in the West Bengal elections flopped into its most embarrassing poll debacle ever. No question, 2024 will be a milestone. But Mamata Banerjee before and beyond 2024 is already an extraordinary story of a woman who fought ferociously for what she thought was hers and took on every challenge that her life and times threw at her.
And won. Every time.
The author: Monideepa Banerjie