WEST Bengal Chief Minister Ms. Mamata Banerjee is trying to hoodwink the nation by offering to resign -- by so-called respecting popular wish. It is naive to think that a woman of her method and manner would make a genuine offer to step down. If she were a woman of honest means, she would have stepped aside long back when the whole nation agonised over the details of the terrible violation of human rights in her State during her regime of the past 15 years. But Ms. Mamata Banerjee is not a person of that fine kind or of fine values. Much to the contrary, she is only trying to make unsuspecting common people believe that she is a genuine person well above politics.

 

Much to the contrary, there is ground to believe that she is playing only a political drama (which actually means nothing on the ground). Outwardly, the trigger was the refusal of Resident Doctors in West Bengal to join her in talks in an attempt to resolve the current crisis. The pictures of the event show a pathetic empty-theatre with rows of unoccupied white chairs -- with the Chief Minister waiting for the Resident Doctors for two hours, her shoulders drooping, her face ashen ! Her offer to step down came in response to that ‘empty’ treatment the Resident Doctors gave the Chief Minister ! -- a fact that nobody would ever want to deny. This political drama -- of offering to resign -- is Ms. Mamata Banerjee’s latest attempt to score a point over her opponents of all kinds. She is now trying to project herself as a coy and helpless woman in distress. There is no need for the common people to get hoodwinked by such tactics -- especially from a woman as nastily and completely political as Ms. Mamata Banerjee. They must realise that a woman who can go to extent of allowing her goon-cadres to indulge in mass violence to intimidate common people would never want to step down -- pompously ‘respecting people’s wish’. People should be able to see through the smoke-screen of emotion which Ms. Banerjee has tried to build. She is not in the least a damsel in distress. Much to the contrary, she is a woman completely in charge of whatever she wishes to do to retain her power. That is the reason why the nation has been asking for her sack -- naturally through the tool of President’s Rule. Unfortunately, the Centre does not see that as an option (for god-knows why).

 

And the Centre’s dilly-dallying on the subject now stands buttressed by a resolution at the recent meeting of the topmost body of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Kerala stating, in effect, that unseating a popularly elected State Government is not the right thing to do for the Government at the Centre. Obviously, the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have other ideas that are yet to be disclosed to the people. No matter that political route the Centre may or may not take, the common people across the country have come to get totally disgusted with the happenings in West Bengal over the past few years -- and therefore seek a salvation from the political logjam. At least for now, there appears no way out of -- unless and until the judiciary initiates certain decisive action and issues directions to the Central Government to act tough -- beyond politics. Beyond politics ! Yes, that is the term to be considered at this stage. For, West Bengal’s problem is well beyond politics. It is in realm of a rotting social order in which there is no semblance of sanity and sanctity of human civility. This is one ugly reality of India of today -- manifested so dirtily in West Bengal over the past many years.