Visitors are encouraged to leave their shoes outside the Kolkata office of TMC MP Mimi Chakraborty like a shrine. It is not about religion but hygiene. India is battling a second round of pandemic, the actress turned politician plays by the rulebook.
“We always play by the rulebook. Others don't, they lecture us about many things,” Chakraborty told Moneycontrol in an interview. Her hint at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s troubled relations with TMC is all but apparent.
After her record victory in Jadavpur constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Chakraborty has worked hard, bolstering her popularity by starting a range of public programmes. She is known in Kolkata as the queen of help, the queen of giveaways, including bags of rice, edible oil, bicycles and books for school children.
Chakraborty is confident the TMC will return for a third term with a 200 plus seats in the assembly elections. She feels the state is battling a host of unsubstantiated charges levelled by the BJP, including the one revolving around the word outsider that PM Narendra Modi has coined into a battle cry, saying the word reflects a negative mindset of the TMC government in Bengal.
“Honestly, I am a bit tired of this outsider, outsider rant. An outsider for us is a person who suddenly lands up on the deck of the ship and lectures the captain how to sail. The BJP must learn to appreciate the values and cultures that has made Bengal what it is today. You cannot just land up and lecture,” says Chakraborty.
Political Ideology
“We are disliked by the BJP because we have rejected the CAA and NRC, we have said we will not allow any political party to cause disruption among various communities in the state. And that’s why the BJP is an outsider. And it will always remain an outsider because it is coming from outside to create trouble in our state.”
She says the BJP must put its own house in order, the party has not been able to select a chief ministerial candidate till date and then lectures Mamata Banerjee on governance. “The unflinching loyalty enjoyed by Didi should be an eye opener for the BJP and its hop-skip-jump politics. Didi is actually the people’s chief minister,” says Chakraborty, who hails from Jalpaiguri, a sleepy north Bengal town known for trading in tea, timber and electronics products.
Chakraborty says Mamata Banerjee—who she calls her undisputed leader—has launched a host of pro-poor schemes in the state, opened universities, polytechnic colleges, hospitals. Banerjee, claims Chakraborty, has effectively changed the face of the state despite several distractions.
“The BJP does not want to talk about such programmes. All we hear is that there is a huge brain drain from West Bengal and it's a state of high unemployment. There is a job crisis all over India. So why malign only Bengal? It is sad that the BJP is actually turning this election into a war like situation. The BJP knows Mamata Banerjee is riding high on a wave of popularity,” said Chakraborty.
Chakraborty said the TMC actually got only five years to work on development projects in the state. “The first five year went in cleaning the mess that state was in after a three decade plus rule of the Left Front. Mamata Banerjee had to do a lot of spring cleaning.”
She says Banerjee is a great politician who cares for the country and its people, she is a possible alternative prime ministerial candidate to Modi.
People in the sunbaked West Bengal state call Banerjee Didi, which translates into elder sister. Throughout Bengal her posters proudly proclaim how Bengal needs her own daughter (the reference here is to Banerjee). Banerjee is an outsize example of the kind of regional politician Modi needs to get on his side to push some of his key reforms. But that is not happening, Banerjee and Modi do not eye to eye.
Chakraborty says it is a pity that the BJP does not listen to her mercurial leader, seeking her support. “All we hear is a politics of hatred, the BJP has started hating us, hating us big. The BJP wants to conquer the earth, paint India in saffron.”
Her words sound like the Bee Gees 1977 song How Deep Is Your Love from the movie Saturday Night Fever. Some of the lines, as per the statement of Chakraborty, are very relevant 44 years later, in the summer of 2021.
Cause we're living in a world of fools
Breaking us down when they all should let us be
We belong to you and me
Chakraborty says politics must be a passion for those in it and that there should not be any hatred. She had recently uploaded photographs of her holiday in Goa with friends, among them was Parno Mitra, also an actress and BJP candidate for Baranagar constituency in north Kolkata. Chakraborty was trolled heavily but she remained unfazed.
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“Parno is a friend first and a friend last. This is her acid test, she is a first timer. I have wished her luck. We are in to serve the people, we cannot hate each other just because we belong to opposition political parties. This is the point I want to drive hard into the BJP camp, do not push politics of hate,” says Chakraborty.
Acting and Politics
Chakraborty says she carries acting and politics on her sleeves. She says the BJP is pushing an unacceptable form of crudeness that mocks the legal system, manipulates political connections. It also reinforces the gap between the privileged and the ordinary. “We need to think about the people of this country and stand by them. Is that happening?” she asks.
An estimated 270,000 farmers in India have committed suicide since 2000 because they could not repay small loans. And banks happily granted loans to millionaires and billionaires who never returned the cash. “Didi’s fight is against these powerful elite.”
A report in Indiaspend website said 5,200 wilful defaulters owed Indian public sector banks about $8.65 billion, much more than the government allocation for agriculture and farmer welfare.
Chakraborty says Indians must remember that the Congress—which ruled India for long—was voted out in large measure because of disgust with the cronyism that facilitated collusion between government and big business. “The same thing is happening with the Modi government that promised minimum government, maximum governance.”
Chakraborty says the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing fast in India. Hundreds go hungry every night even as billionaires gain entry into the Richie rich club, according to her. In short, what the actress turned politician meant is that the 19th century American robber barons resonate in present-day India. Chakraborty says she and her party hate fanciful luxuries that seem to mock the banks and the people they have swindled.
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A political party, argues Chakraborty, will always be measured by high propriety and efficient governance. But is that happening, asks the popular actor, whose Tagore songs have caught the fancy of people in Bengal and the Bengali community across the globe. Just before this interview, Chakraborty sang one for a television crew, just a few lines.
Dariye Aacho Tumi Amar Gaaner Oparey,
Amar Sur Guli Pay Choron, Ami Pai Ni Tomare
It translates into: “You are standing on the other side of my song, your feet get my tunes, I do not get you.”
Chakraborty and her party is ready for the battle royale, or what she calls the acid test of her life. The TMC, she says, will stop BJP’s powerful and continuing nationalism searing into national fabric. She calls it BJP’s lust to divide and destroy the fabric of India, not a desire to unite.
Let them come to conquer Bengal, khela hobe which translates into Game On.
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