Jaundiced eye can't see true colour

A maverick Mamata Banerjee has the rare ability to make and unmake peoples' political fortunes. Mukul Roy, who is no different from an average Bengali, is now tipped to be the next Railway Minister of India. If Banerjee has her way then Roy will preside over the largest railway network in the world. There are many others who have made political fortunes riding on Banerjee's popularity.

On the other hand, veteran politicians like Somen Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Sudip Bandyopadhyay have been pushed to political insignificance by Banerjee. Mitra, who presided over the expulsion of Banerjee from the Congress, had his political rehabilitation at the mercy of the Trinamool Congress supremo. Similarly, Mukherjee and Bandyopadhyay, who revolted against the whims and fancies of Banerjee during the KMC polls and the Lok Sabha elections respectively, were reduced to being paper tigers as they got re-elected only with the blessings from Banerjee.

Dinesh Trivedi, whose railway budget anguished Banerjee, was the Trinamool Congress supremo's point man in the corridors of power for a very long time. Now that he has drawn Banerjee's ire, doesn't change his political credentials. Yet he has been upgraded to the position of a martyr, as if he has dedicated himself for a noble cause.

An astute politician and an MBA from the University of Texas, Trivedi, however, worked out his exit strategy well. He didn't pretend to be a revolutionary as Mitra, Mukherjee and Bandyopadhyay tried to be, rather his pragmatic business plan acknowledged the fact that without Banerjee's support he cannot continue in the government or in the party. Trivedi, therefore, made it amply clear that he would step down the moment the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his leader Banerjee would want him to do so.

The brand of politics as practised by Banerjee is often quite rightly brandished as bad economics. She is not the only one though to take that path. Given a choice, a majority of the Indian politicians would tread the populist path as they simply do not care for any form of accountibility in public life. Fiscal prudence might be the buzzword of India Inc but that does not necessarily mean that all Indian politicians are enlightened about the the virtues of presiding over a state in good economic health.

Even those who understand the benefits of good economics do not necessarily do what is necessary to ensure that. People like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram have been in charge of the Indian exchequer for quite a long time, yet they often do not practise what they preach.

Trivedi is turned into a martyr as he claimed to have worked towards making the Indian Railways economically healthy. Those who are shouting in his support are often overlooking some glaring facts which testify the fact that not enough is being down to ensure the health of the national economy or to provide the necessary support to those who have been left out of the story of shining India.

The government of India offered Rs 4.6 lakh crore in tax exemptions and incentives to industrialists, compared to Rs 1.54 lakh crore in subsidies to the poor and farmers. If this piece of statistics is true then one needs to raise the question as to why the industrialists are favoured at the cost of the poor people. The common argument is that the industrial sector creates jobs, but they also make profits and what about their corporate social responsibility. Moreover, the government has a responsibility to look after the poor and work towards reducing economic inequality.

That apart, the subsidies given to the large (rich) farmers, the huge non-planned expenditure and the non-taxation of agricultural income (many Indian politicians own agricultural land to avoid taxes) point towards the hostile attitude of successive governments towards the poor.

So Banerjee is not the only one to be blamed for the economic mess the country is in. This, however,  does not in any way justify her action of demanding Trivedi's resignation following the presentation of the Railway budget. The way Banerjee is being projected in the social networking sites and the Indian media is that she is holding the nation and good governance to ransom. If that is the case then the politicians with high political acumen and experience need to do a lot of answering about their ability to diffuse crises.

It is funny that people close to the CPI-M are also bestowing martyr hood on Trivedi, the man who till recently was Banerjee's man Friday in the corridors of power and thrashed the Left on every available opportunity. To hold the Indian politicians to account the people of the country should learn to shun the partisan attitude of assessing every event. They should stop seeing things with a jaundiced eye.

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