My Friends, my Comrades, my sworn Enemies, Last evening... what a pleasant surprise: Srijukto Babul Supriya called me. I congratulated him again and said I was congratulating on behalf of many people. Such a gentleman this new Honble Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), he was audibly bashful. I could sense his humility. THE Quality that most of us lack today - especially our politicians and artists and authors and film directors. He told me that he had been living in Mumbai for a long time but his heart belonged to Bengal and I could get a certain tone that told me that he was speaking in earnest. He didnt mention the grave undemocratic and, in my opinion, barbaric steps the WB government had taken against him and what the AITMC leadership had been propagating about him (that he had slapped someone or hit someone...lizard-shit, eh?) - not even in passing. He didnt allude to that subject at all. A Gentleman! On the contrary he lamented the fact that the Right Honble CM of WB, Kumari Mamata Banerjee failed to go to Delhi to congratulate the newly elected PM, Sri N. Modi. Srijukto Babul-Supriya said it was a pity that Smt Jayalalita was there but not Kumari Mamata Banerjee. I think he was politically right. It would certainly have been a good gesture on our dear CMs part if she had gone to Delhi and congratulated the new PM personally. I immensely liked the point that the newly elected Honble MP was making: Kumari Mamata, our respected CM, needed to go there not only as an individual but also as THE chief of the state, West Bengal. I noted the correct political stance this young Honble MP, Srijukto Babul-Supriya had taken. There was not an iota of malice in his voice or in the way he formed sentences and used Bengali words as he talked of Kumari Mamata Banerjee. What I heard was a tone of regret. He was regretting the fact that Kumari Mamata Banerjee did not go to Delhi because he was concerned about our state. After all our state needs money, financial grants, aids. After all the Left Front Government has left a state behind them that could only be called derelict. And what the poriborton Government has been doing unto this poor poor states exchequer cannot be looked upon as a balm. The poriborton-nortonkurdon extravaganza, the dancing steps of our Right Honble Brand-Ambassador and his historic feat in enlisting both His Excellency, the Governor and the Hugely and Passionately Respected and Beloved Chief Minister in his dance on a massive dais - a dance that invoked in my mind an imagined prehistoric effort of Homo Erectus to try out something that the Homo Sapiens would one day call a dance genre - ah ah ah...the entire spectacle watched by millions of tax payers and toilers and some vagabonds too ... and who footed the bill? And then all the Banga-Ratna Banga-Bhushon Banga-heeramanik Banga-kokil Banga-notyo Banga-ki-mishti awards that always go with a monitory appendage which amounts to several lacs each time. Who foots the bill? The tax payer. Our state is in a crisis, a grave financial crisis which not even the omnipotent Rajnikanth could free us of. The previous government (the Left one that left nothing left... not even for the vultures) made it a habit of blaming everything on Kendrer Bonchona - the Deprivation heaped upon Bengal by the Centre. The Poriborton government for whom and for whose men and horses everything that the Left had done had to be bad wasted no time in picking up the Centres Deprivation and Step-Motherly Attitude tune. During the Panchayet and the recent Parliamentary Election, wicked fault-finders say, the Poriborton Avatars happily followed the CPIMs famous and much-lauded rigging techniques too. Now what are we, the people of WB, left with? My Prophet Sukumar Rays Kakkeshwar, the dear old Crow, had said, haate roilo pencil (Its only the pencil thats left in the hand). Where the overall scenario is so dismal what the young and newly elected Honble MP, Srijukto Babul-Supriya said to me DID make sense. Whether one likes the new Honble PM, Sri Modi or not the fact is he IS THE NEW PRIME MINISTER OF OUR COUNTRY and he will be in a position to move things including the central exchequer. Granted that Kumari Mamata Banerjee, our beloved CM, had taken potshots at Sri Modi during the election campaign. But did that come from true animosity? She and her party had once been with the NDA and everyone knows what happened in Gujarat and elsewhere during their regime. In 2009, Kumari Mamata Banerjee, the TMC Supremo, decided to form an alliance with Congress only a while before the election campaign started. Before that we, the Great Peoples Movement activists (all shades of people with various political creeds) and the TMC had attacked the Congress for their weird attitude toward the Nandigram Carnage perpetrated by the CPIM. Once, in Andhra, several agitating working people were killed in police firing and the PM, Sri Manmohan Singh, went to Andhra. But he didnt find any reason to visit West Bengal, Nandigram specifically when (officially declared) 14 people were killed by the police. All of us had given him and his party the hell because of this. Kumari Mamata Banerjee would gnash her teeth even at the mention of Congress in those days. I was very close to her in those days and I am better informed than almost all her present close associates - many of whom had supported the CPIM and had kept mum over the Nandigram Massacre. I clearly remember: the evening Mamata called me and said she was going to form an alliance with the Congress I was busy organizing an anti-eviction effort in a decrepit Garia slum with my SUCI comrades and a couple of local TMC comrades. There was a hell of a lot of slogan-yelling going on and I tried to tell her that she should rather go it alone in the election and be on her own. In an unperturbed voice she said, Kabirda, I have to win (Kabirda, amay jitte hobe). - Upon this I fell silent at once. True. Who was I? Just an activist. She was the supremo of a whole political party with so much experience. It was politics, no adventurism. Kabirda, I have to win. Right. So its not ideology, not any faith in any idea or creed, NOT EVEN FAITH IN PEOPLE AND IN ONESELF. Its VICTORY, ENSURING VICTORY that was important. If that was important at that time then it should also be important now and later. So, who knows, may be someday, Kumari Mamata may have to give a friendly nod at Sri Modi or to become friendly with him TO ENSURE VICTORY. That on one side. Providing financial relief to her people should at least be on the other. This, I think, was what Srijukto Babul Supriya was also hinting at apart from the fact that it would be sheer good gesture on the WB CMs part to go and congratulate Sri Modi, the new PM. ...// I liked the seriousness with which this young Honble MP spoke - and he was speaking AS AN INDIVIDUAL, not as a BJP cadre or BJP-man. He showed the temperament of a modern politician, the temperament that a modern politician in our country should have. In a few minutes I could FEEL his concern for the state and for his people and I loved it. What a pity it is that in Bengal you hardly find any MP apart from individuals like the (unfortunately) ex-MP Dr. Tarun Mondal (SUCI), the Honble MP Sri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the (unfortunately) ex-MP, Dr Ramchandra Dom (CPIM) and the (unfortunately) ex-MP Sri Shameek Lahiri (CPIM) - what a nice and brilliant young man - who seem to have any concern at all for the state or for the people. Many friends are already suspicious that the new government will somehow steer things towards Hindu jingoism and a Hinduism-oriented chauvinistic patriotism. They are apprehensive that the minorities will again start to feel uneasy. I dont like the BJP. But is there any parliamentary party that I really like? I dont think so. During my tenure I came to like individuals who belonged to various parties. I liked Sri Varun Gandhis personality and last evening I told Srijukto Babul Supriya that he could make friends with Varun for he was also dynamic and gentle. I came to like the MPs from Orissa. What educated and modern minds. Sri Nabeen Pattanayaks (pls excuse the spelling mistake) Young Men! Admirable! I wish there were such young dreamers and energetic development workers amongst the Bengal MPs. I came to love the Honble MP Sri Tathagat Sathpathy from Orissa for his views and for his elegant demeanour. I also came to like the Honble MP Smt Ratna De Nag (TMC) for her gentleness, her stand-alone character, her reticence amidst colleagues whose major gift was that of the gab, her friendliness and for her activities. I also came to respect the Honble MP, Sri Saugata Ray (TMC) for his unencumbered attitude and his non-partisan, modern approach to my type (a strange one in the TMC fold) and I fell in love with the Honble MP Sri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury who greeted me with the following words when we first met at the smokers room at the Central Hall, Parliament: (Smilingly) Dada, I feel sorry to see a rebel like you in this place. Theres another man I came to love: the Honble MP, Sri Dwinesh Trivedi who also greeted me with the following words when we meet on the very first session day at the Lok Sabha: Dada, seeing you here is like seeing a tiger in a cage. This is NOT your place, Dada. This house has no heart, no soul. Its just a body. - I earnestly hope my Dwineshda doesnt encounter trouble for my words. Friends and Enemies, you might feel up to commenting: Hey, but you say nice things about Adhir Ranjan and Dwinesh because they spoke in that way. - True. I wouldnt argue. For a man like me who was circumstantially forced to fight an election and bust the so-called Red Fortress of Jadavpur and who was then snubbed and bullied by the TMC Supremo and belittled by her and her followers such words are doubtless nice and memorable. I hope the new BJP MP, the Honble Srijukto Babul Supriya reads this and tries out if interacting with the people I found eminently likeable gives him a good time at the Parliament. Enjoy the Indian Parliament which knows no foes, where sharing a coffee and a dry toast with a guy who comes from a party with whom your party is at loggerheads is no crime. And discover our Parliament, dear Srijukto Babul Supriya. Its probably the only Parliament in the world where theres no dress code. You can wear anything you like, not necessarily the white that seemed to me to be the uniform colour of most parties, barring a few. Youll discover that in this great, august House the Security personnel look into your eyes as they greet you and NOT AT HOW YOU ARE DRESSED. Isnt that wonderful, my Friend? Stay well and happy...and many happy returns of the day your election result came out making not only you and your family and your party friends but also sworn enemies of your party (such as yours truly) and many others happy.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 04:49:18 +0000
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