Calcutta Capers

The Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance is not functioning well in Bengal, never mindthe media hype. To begin with, Murshidabad Congress supremo Adhir Choudhury, MP, stayed away from all meetings and declared he would see to it that the alliance did nottake effect in Murshidabad. In view of his undoubted following and strength in the sevenAssembly constituency areas in the district, the TMC/Congress are having a hard timecountering him. In Malda too, despite formally putting heavyweight Ghani Khan Choudhury in charge, Trinamool leaders are still posing problems by backing this or that candidate for particular seats in the district.

On the other hand, the Trinamool candidate at Kalna, Amal Dutta, a former police official, has not yet been able to enter his constituency. Local TMC men treat him as an outsider and have threatened him to stay away or else. Meanwhile, the Left Front candidate, almost unopposed, has completed a month's campaigning there.

There are also other areas where the TMC has lagged behind the Left Front. The party was late in releasing its pollmanifesto which, by common knowledge, was written by twojournalists belonging to a particular newspaper group in Calcutta. The owner of the groupwas named by Congress general secretary Kamal Nath as having attended the preliminaryalliance meeting, held at HIS residence and not at any party office! When this wasreported in a section of the local press, spokesmen of the group promptly claimed thattheir chief editor was away in Sweden, but did not contradict Nath. A case of confusionworse confounded? The Marxists in Bengal have long dubbed "bourgeois" newspapers, not to mention their employees, as class enemies who must be fought relentlessly. For once it seems they are in the right.

There were plenty of signs that the Trinamool Congress was facing serious internalproblems -- flowing from Ms Mamata Banerjee's unilateral, dramatic decision to quit theNDA on the Tehelka revelations.

At the formal release of its poll manifesto, only one MP, Bikram Sarkar was present. Eminent MPs like Mr Ajit Panja, Mrs Krishna Bose, Mr. Ranjit Panja and Mr. Nitish Sengupta were absent. Each had informally told newsmen about their shock and anger at their leader not observing the courtesy of even informing them of her decision.

And the first thing a senior TMC leader told newsmen on arrival at the Press Club,where the launch was taking place was: "I had nothing to do with the manifesto, theothers were working on it." And he was a member of the committee appointed to publishthe manifesto! Ms Banerjee herself stayed away, leaving leaders like Sudip Banerjee,Pankaj Banerjee and Sobhandeb Chatterjee to face the music at a time of torment for theparty.

And now, a few quotes from the long-awaited manifesto which, incidentally, a localjournalist employed in a major paper, is credited with preparing (It gets curiouser and curiouser - please note the singular. The earlier reliable reports claimed it was the handiwork of two journos from the same esteemed newspaper)

We quote verbatim :

• "Kolkata and greater Kolkata shall develop together.
• "Specially designed hoardings shall be permitted for political parties to preachthe ideology.
• "Affection and humanity shall be the foundation stones of several special projectsand programs for them (the physically handicapped).
• "Women are the pride of our society. Women Commission shall be strengthened toensure women's empowerment in social and economic fields.
• "Women empowerment groups to give special attention to women shall be set up.
• "In culture, an expert committee shall be formed covering all such arts includingfine arts, jatra, cinema, theatre, music, dance, folk art, folk theatre, folk music anddance, etc.
• "We shall respect all religion/languages caste and creed. Local dialects/languageshall be accorded its due.
• "Rice collection shall be increased.
• "Special endeavour to improve management labour relationship.
• "On floods, we shall ensure strict round the clock vigil 24 hours-a-day 365days-a-year on dams and barrages.
• "Bengal has lost her pristine glory and heritage under the yoke of thepseudo-Marxists, their fascist and Goebellian theocracy and parochial "poli-tricks".