It is a stage that Mamata Banerjee thrives on: a huge spectacle, masses of people, song and dance, lights and colour in a unique combination that only the Durga pujas can bring to the City of Joy. And its grand finale is the Carnival which is organised each year in the city since 2016. This year’s carnival was special in more ways than one. It was the first after the Covid-induced hiatus of the last two years. It was also the first Carnival after Bengal’s biggest celebration got a heritage tag from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which recognized “Durga Puja in Kolkata” and put it on the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”. To commemorate the UNESCO’s recognition, the West Bengal Government drew up plans to hold mini-carnivals in each district headquarter in the State. Another subliminal message that it sought to send out was this was the first Carnival after the Trinamool Congress vanquished its challenger, the BJP, in the 2021 Assembly elections. That was an election during which the BJP’s big guns famously declared during campaigning that the “Mamata government did not allow Durga Pujas to be organised in the state”. It was seen as a fitting reply to such detractors.
Trinamool Congress supporters could not be faulted if they saw their electoral victory in terms of “Mahishasura Mardhini” which literally means one who killed the Asura Mahishasura and refers to Goddess Durga. And no prize for guessing who this Durga that they worship was.
It was a stage tailor-made for Mamata Banerjee to send out some very well-targeted messages. The main aim was to send out an “all is well” message to her party workers at a time when conversations at tea stalls, buses and trains across the state all revolve around the multiple scams that have been unearthed.
Mamata’s self-styled second-in-command in the party and cabinet Partha Chattopadhyay is in jail for the past two months for his alleged role in selling teaching and non-teaching jobs that his education department was in charge of filling up. His many accomplices, including a starlet, are in custody and images of hillocks of cash and jewellery recovered from the starlet’s apartments are being seen as proceeds of crime the likes of which the state or perhaps the nation has never seen earlier.
The exuberance that the Carnival sought to portray was all around: the Kolkata Police’s bike squad performed stunts dressed as Durga and her children. Ninety-five of the city’s best Puja idols rolled down Red Road on decorated trailers accompanied by their organising committee members dressed up in traditional designer-wear and amid specially curated song and dance numbers. The only one missing from all the action was the one which was famously identified with Partha Chattopadhyay and like him, was consciously consigned to oblivion this year by the organisers.
As the floats carrying the idols passed by, performers did their routines in front of a stage done up to resemble a jamindar’s mansion. The focus, by design, was squarely on Mamata. Mamata tried to play her part conscientiously. She joined a group of Santhal dancers as a tribal song played. She played the Dhak, the drum whose sound heralds the autumn festival and also swung dandiya sticks with gusto.
But veteran Mamata and TMC watchers could see that her heart was not in it. She was going through the motions carefully, standing, applauding and smiling. But the smile was forced. The facial muscles twitched into a smile, but the eyes did not mirror the same. Her old-time lieutenants Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee’s glum expressions did nothing to dispel the widely-held impression that the Pujas was a mere stop-gap before the Central law enforcement agencies upped the ante on corruption in the state.
The Education Department scams unearthed by law enforcement agencies under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of the judiciary, the unbelievable accumulation of wealth by a Class-8 pass-out and fish-seller who was the district president of the Trinamool, and rumours of many more scams waiting to be revealed are worries that bedevil Mamata. “Who next?” is a question that is increasingly gaining ground these days.
The BJP, with its troika of State leaders, President Sukanta Majumdar, his predecessor Dilip Ghosh and new entrant from the Trinamool Suvendu Adhikari are doing all they can to declare that in a matter of a few months, most of Mamata’s Cabinet colleagues would be in jail. Even Mamata, who was carefully branded as “Satata-r prateek” (the epitome of honesty), will go to jail, assert BJP leaders.
Reports of widespread corruption are not the only worries facing Mamata Banerjee. Her party, say observers, is now a divided house with factions that eye each other with suspicion. Her nephew and heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee is apparently trying to bring forth a “new and improved” Trinamool with his own band of chosen leaders, thereby implying that Mamata’s old associates are tainted and need to be discarded. Observers say this faction would be even happier than the BJP if more leaders loyal to Mamata are exposed as corrupt. Rumours of a Shinde-like operation that toppled Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra are being flogged by gleeful BJP leaders as being “imminent”. The big question is who can become the Trinamool’s Eknath Shinde.
The stagnating economy is another big worry for Mamata. The Centre has also put its brakes on giving funds to the state amid allegations of fund diversion.
The judiciary, under whose dogged supervision layers of scams are being unravelled every day, is leaving the Trinamool squirming. Judges are being seen as the saviours by thousands of deserving youth whose jobs were allegedly sold by the Trinamool leaders. Their stated resolve to punish wrong-doers is sending shivers down many spines.
The author is a Kolkata-based senior journalist.
