Mamata Banerjee's name has been etched in the history of India among those leaders, whose presence have been mile stones in India politics, whether you like it or not. Her name, preceded with an oft - repeated adjective, mercurial, is doing the media round yet again for her not so benevolent comments against the judiciary. Only a short while back was she lampooned for arresting a poor farmer, who dared to ask her a question, after branding him a Maoist. True, the lady has become one of a kind, with her almost-cartoon-like behaviour. Talk about cartoons, she doesn't like that even.

            

          When "Didi" came into prominence, bombarding the Left Bastion that Kolkata used to be, the western media celebrated, may be a bit more than our own. Be it her impractical diktat of talking to anyone from the Left, leave alone marrying them; or walking out from a talk show (which, later on, was completed by the juvenile journalist at Banerjee’s residence), her stint as the West Bengal CM, has been nothing but a diwali pataka of impractical blunders that doesn’t seem to stop and even if she tries (which I don’t think she does) to stop, the media may not leave her alone.

            

            But the excessive negativity, almost akin to a witch hunt, if not in a manner that is reserved only for Narendra Modi, reeks of some conspiracy and wretchedness. That the media is not holier-than-thou has been proved ample amount of times by various netizens and their own activities (Radia Tape, Fake Live Interview et al.) That the media is filled with Left Leaning bigots is also something which needs no introduction to. Hence one cannot but wonder, if this ridicule that the Hon. West Bengal Chief Minister is being meted out is in some way a deliberate attempt to show her in a poor light.

             

            But yet, when our anchors present these to the unassuming audience with a smirk; every time such laughable and sometimes dangerously serious incidents crop up around Ms. Banerjee; I wonder, how at the ground level, the CM is perceived. West Bengal is one of the poorest states in India having a BPL population of 48% as per the state's calculation, and 28% as per that of the Centre. ^{Link 1 Link2} Do these significant chunks of population actually bother about what their Chief Minister had commented on the Judiciary? Will they be more worried about what Didi tells her party men about Communists or will they be worried about the next day’s meal? It is a bit naive to assume that such incidents, which, sadly, does give away streaks of autocracy, will be affecting a poor farmer or an ordinary house-wife struggling with the rising costs of vegetables or a girl who is not able to go to school simply because her parents could not afford it. They cannot even begin to care what the elitist English news channels talk about the Chief Minister; because it is ridiculous to imagine that any one will be ready to watch the anchors jabbering off into oblivion, in those precious moments when there is no power cut. 

            

             True, I don’t think that she is the best thing that happened to West Bengal. I don’t even think she is a good CM. She is average, just like our Prime Minister. She talks a lot, he doesn’t – that sums up the difference in their performance. Hence to put the woman under this much scrutiny, for every single sentence she utters and then to make it the topic of discussion of FTN and TBSH is venomous and intentional. May be, the fact that the last vestige of the horrendous ideology of Communist parties has broken down and shattered, is not being accepted by the pseudo intelligentsia and the cheap thugs, the Left now comprises of. Or maybe it is that she is just not cool enough for the media, like Mr. Omar Abdullah is whose performance as a CM had met a tragic demise long ago.

             

                       If the recent India Today – Nielson Mood of the Nation polls is anything to go by, Mamata Banerjee’s popularity has not only been unaffected by these negative news, on the contrary she has gained significant good will of her people, now being voted 3^rd most popular Chief Minister, only behind the obvious choices of Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar and above Jayalalithaa's conspicuously low ranking. She has thus kept her account strong and safe in West Bengal, despite her hugely impractical and and some times childish and a bit autocratic decisions. I am of the personal view that anything which keeps the farce that Communists have become now is good. Not to forget is the fact that, this is a woman who has been a street fighter politician since she became active in politics. May be she was meant to perpetually continue in that role, a reason why she might have participated in rallies conducted against the policies of her own governments! May be she is not talking, how a CM should. But when I see the drama played out by our “sensitive” ruling party MPs over being called “illegitimate” or the hoopla created out of a boring cartoon, or the indignation paraded by our honourable representatives when Team Anna called them corrupt, I do not mind a Chief Minister, who at the worst is overtly emotional and short tempered. That is last of India’s trouble.