Mamata Banerjee: The Street Fighter Who Has Defined Her Political Career

On February 4, Mamata Banerjee stood in the crowded courtroom, in the midst of a sea of black-robed lawyers, and, addressing the Supreme Court bench, said, “May I explain, sir? I come from that region… What was the hurry to do what takes two years, only within three months?” In her white tanter (handloom) saree and “Hawai choti (slippers)”, a black stole around her neck, Mamata Banerjee, as Chief Minister, was making submissions before Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that had set off a churn in West Bengal over alleged disenfranchisement of voters. This is someone who, as a 20-something youth Congress activist, once stood on the bonnet of J P Narayan’s car in defiance of the anti-Emergency leader. The courtroom was no car bonnet, but like all those years ago, at 71, this was a stage and a moment Mamata owned and made her own. At least for a while, all else was forgotten and forgiven — the stasis in governance, the long list of scams in which her ministers and party leaders were arrested, her 15-year rule that built on the party-society structure of the Left, and constant bickering with the Centre and the BJP. In that moment, she was the Chief Minister who had, for the “sake of the people of her state” and on their behalf, personally decided to appeal to the judiciary. A month earlier, on January 8, in the midst of a raid conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at locations linked to I-PAC, the political consultancy firm managing the Trinamool Congress’s poll campaign, Mamata had barged into the Kolkata residence of the firm’s co-founder Pratik Jain and walked out with a green folder and a laptop. “I have collected the party file… They are trying to get the candidate list and our internal information. Is this the duty of the ED and Amit Shah ? See, I got this, the file and hard drive,” she said, showing the green folder. “What if I raid the BJP party office? What will be the fallout?” It’s this image of Mamata, as someone who likes a good fight, that has defined her political career. Now, as she aims for a fourth straight term since first coming to power in 2011, the gloves are off. The TMC has centred its campaign around Mamata and Bengali asmita (pride), framing the BJP as the outsider (bohiragoto). At the heart of Mamata’s long political career is a beguiling ability. Whether in the Opposition or as the incumbent, she is, in the public imagination, the same street fighter from Kalighat who takes on a machine bigger than herself. As the young Congress leader who emerged with a bandaged head after a protest against the Left government at Hazra in 1990 turned violent; as the rebel who broke away from the Congress in 1997 to form the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 1998, as the TMC leader who sat on a 25-day hunger strike over Singur, turning land acquisition into a mass agitation. And then, since 2016, when she has tried everything, kicking, screaming and fighting, to keep the BJP out of Bengal. In doing so, she has managed to turn every election, at least 2016, into a contest between West Bengal and New Delhi , rather than a referendum on her governance. Jawahar Sircar, former bureaucrat and Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha member who resigned in the wake of the 2024 R G Kar rape and murder case, says Mamata’s innate understanding of protests makes her stand out even among leaders with a similar agitational style of politics. “Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal may have similar tactics. But Mamata can be physical and go in for a clash. Kejriwal can make a scene, but he won’t get his head or leg broken,” says Sircar. “The idea she is trying to portray is that unless her party adopts such an aggressive approach, it can’t take on 24*7 cadre parties, first the CPI-M and now the BJP,” he adds. Sircar recalls a moment in the run-up to the 1999 general elections when parties were prohibited from using the national flag under the Model Code of Conduct. “At a rally in South Kolkata, she went to the platform with a little girl and got her to raise the flag, while she held on to the girl. It was a spot decision and her opponents who complained that she was using the national flag too much were outwitted. She said, ‘You don’t want me to raise the flag, I won’t’. She holds the little girl and gets all the publicity,” says Sircar. To understand Mamata, it helps to place her in a rare lineage of women leaders, says Ritwick Shrivastav, a political consultant and founder of Prajatantra Foundation, a non-profit working on governance. Jayalalithaa walked out of the Tamil Nadu Assembly in 1989, saree torn and hair dishevelled, after being physically assaulted on the floor of the House. In 1995, BSP chief Mayawati was cornered and threatened by Samajwadi Party workers at a Lucknow guest house, an incident that sparked a rift with Mulayam Singh Yadav that lasted decades. “Mamata herself rose by standing up to an entrenched and frequently violent Left Front cadre in a state where political workers were routinely killed, and booth-capturing was institutional,” he says. The image that captures Mamata’s approach best came during the widespread agitation in the wake of the 2024 RG Kar rape and murder case. While people took to the streets, furious at not just the incident but the state government’s handling of the case, the Chief Minister herself was on the streets, leading rallies demanding justice for the victim and capital punishment for the rapist. It did not matter that she was the one in power; she was out there on the streets, protesting. TMC Rajya Sabha member Dola Sen, who has worked with Mamata for two decades, says Mamata is a “true fighter” and is “genuinely pro-people”. “Whenever the people in Bengal are in distress, she is there. She is a very strict administrator, something she has proved in the last 15 years,” she says. A recent poll campaign, ‘Fighter Didi’, plays heavily on this image of Mamata. In it, she is the superhero, the warrior princess in her cotton saree and chappals whose lasso bundles BJP leaders Himanta Sarma and Suvendu Adikari. Yet, this street fighter image has its limits. The constant state of battle-readiness and strained relationship with the Centre have come at a cost. Funds under Central schemes such as NREGA and PM Awaas Yojana have been withheld for extended periods over alleged irregularities, prompting the state to pitch in with its own schemes and funds. Infrastructure projects, too, have taken a hit. Over the last five years, the condition of roads has visibly deteriorated and the scams that have hit the education department have meant that more than 8,000 schools have had to shut down and thousands of teacher posts are vacant. If her first term focused on governance and an administrative reset after three decades of Left rule — from tours to districts to a strong welfare push in the form of the 2013 Kanyashree scheme, which won the state a UN award, and bicycles for students, among other measures – after 2016, with the BJP snapping at the TMC’s heels, Mamata shifted gears. Her politics of confrontation meant that she had to play her cards carefully. Decision-making became centralised and Mamata began relying on a tightly controlled party apparatus. Her decision to promote nephew Abhishek Banerjee, now the TMC’s all-India general secretary, was the cause of resentment among the old guard. A string of high-profile exits to the BJP followed, including of Suvendu Adhikari, once Mamata’s confidant and now her key rival. A source close to her dismisses reports of differences between Mamata and Abhishek, saying his rise in the party could be part of a deliberate plan. “You may see a confident Abhishek today but frankly, she has made him go through the grind. Besides, propping up Abhishek would make it possible for her to drive the rot out of the system, which she could not. It creates a generational distance while keeping the TMC legacy intact. Besides, the old, ageing coterie would bleed out and crumble under the promise of a new leadership committed to change.” Explaining why Mamata didn’t capitalise on the poriborton wave that brought her to power in 2011 and instead ended up entrenching the political culture of the Left, Monobina Gupta, author of Didi, A Political Biography, says, “Unlike the Left, Mamata didn’t have time for party-building because people wanted to see the change immediately. Her politics was built on welfare schemes, and she needed a cadre network to not only strengthen her grassroots but to ensure her schemes reached every beneficiary. That’s why she appropriated (the Left’s) machinery — it suited her political ambition then. But it was also the greatest political disappointment…,” says Gupta. Talking about the “lumpenisation” of the TMC, one of Mamata’s appointees in the legal system says, “It was not that she wasn’t aware of what was going on. In fact, she needed her own people as ears and eyes. But she did not dismantle the status quo because that would have hurt her politically. Given the culture of opportunism and with parties like the BJP willing to be new patrons, she could not lose these supporters either.” What followed was a string of controversies and scandals, many of them involving ministers and party leaders considered close to her — from Madan Mitra and Kunal Ghosh, who were arrested in the Saradha scam, to the school jobs scam that allegedly involved Partha Chatterjee. This was followed by the alleged ration scam, coal pilferage and cattle smuggling scams. Nephew Abhishek, who runs the party’s ground operations, has also been accused of corruption, but these allegations have so far not reached her door. What has stood out through Mamata’s three terms is her personal image — as someone untouched by the privileges that come with power. Her modest home in Kalighat remains unchanged, her room stark and bare. Those who know her well say she maintains a deeply personal connection. They talk of how she keeps in touch over private hotlines and helps people out in times of distress. Others talk of her personal visits, without her security trail, when she would be completely at home, propping her feet up, regaling you with her stories. Mamata is known to be a devout Shakti worshipper, someone who cooks the prasad herself during Kali Puja, and wears her saree the traditional way while at her Kalighat home. Those who have worked with her say she is quick with her decisions but tends to be emotional and impulsive. A former bureaucrat says, “When she was starting the cash transfer schemes, some officers flagged that it would create a revenue constraint, but she said, ‘I will do it for the people; money will be arranged.’ Once, while returning from a district tour, she met some children at the roadside without shoes or chappals. Then and there, she asked her team to start a scheme to distribute shoes to students.” This hands-on, impulsive nature has seen entire schemes or decisions being changed after her intervention. “The Chief Minister wanted to create a higher state civil service drawn from the top category of West Bengal Civil Service officers. Everything was decided. Then, the CM came across a newspaper report, and, after consulting with some close officers, stopped all work on the idea. That happened more than eight years ago. The project hasn’t seen the light of day,” says a senior IAS officer. Saumitra Khan, who left the TMC alleging lack of democracy in the party and is now BJP MP from Bishnupur, says, “Mamata Banerjee has the ability to get people close to her very fast. But she also has the ability to throw the person away as fast. She has been a street fighter all her life, but that is sometimes not suitable when you are the head of government.” Now, as a long-drawn, shrill election campaign comes to an end, Mamata has, true to her style, gone all out. She has addressed 94 public meetings, gone on 13 padayatras and held four road shows since March 25. Even for someone as battle-hardened as Mamata, this could be her toughest fight yet. Will she, once again, stop the BJP’s juggernaut from rolling into West Bengal? Over to May 4.