By IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI
Singur, Sept. 4: Mamata Banerjee was in the middle of a speech when a party leader whispered something into her ears.
She cut short her speech and looked at the crowd, furious.
“Maintain peace. I have told you several times. I have to attend a very important meeting,” the Trinamul chief chided the gathering.
She glanced at her watch, turned to the crowd, then looked at her watch again.
It was 4pm.
She looked tense and irritated.
Minutes later, she was shaking with laughter.
On the manch was the wife of an unwilling landloser hurling abuse at policemen for the “atrocities” they had committed while taking over their land.
“She is speaking from her heart,” Mamata laughed, butting in.
Next moment she turned serious again when Dola Sen, a Maoist activist, leaned over and said her mobile was ringing.
“I am going to attend a meeting,” Mamata said before disappearing into the adjacent office-cum-control room.
Meet Mamata, the crisis manager from a manch.
She has been doing this for the past couple of days, shuttling between speeches on stage and her makeshift office, her mood swinging from happy to angry every few minutes.
The change in mood comes with the “advice” given by those around her, especially Madan Mitra, the one who had interrupted her while she was speaking, and Dola.
Mamata is seldom alone on the manch. It is either Mitra or Dola who keeps whispering into her ears at frequent intervals.
Mitra stands right next to her, Dola a little behind. Trinamul councillor Sovan Chatterjee remains seated. He stops people from entering the office when Mamata is inside.
But Mamata is hardly in her chair. She is on her feet most of the time, keeping herself updated as her lieutenants shuttle between Calcutta and Singur to hold talks with the governor.
Today, for instance, a team led by Opposition leader Partha Chatterjee met the governor. Mamata went inside her office 12 times in an hour while her team was away, but was out on the manch within minutes each time. The maximum she stayed inside her office was five minutes.
In between, she picked up the microphone and asked the crowd to maintain peace. And every few minutes, she checked her wristwatch.
Around 4.30, Sovan Chatterjee said something to her. Mamata turned towards Dola, furious. “I told you to do what I said. I will listen to you after that,” she barked at the Maoist activist.
Around 5, Mitra again whispered something into Mamata’s ears. She asked him to shout slogans against forcible acquisition of land and asked the crowd to join in.
Standing in a corner of the manch, Mamata again looked at her wristwatch, twice.
She went inside her office only to reappear in five minutes.
“I am going to attend another meeting,” she said and rushed inside again to talk to former party MP Dinesh Trivedi and former MLA Moloy Ghatak.
After a few minutes, she returned on the stage, stood in a corner, wiped sweat from her face and surveyed the crowd.
Then she picked up her mobile phone and began talking, nodding her head vigorously.
Minutes later, she was at the microphone again, asking the crowd to maintain order.
It was only around 6, when Chatterjee along with the other leaders returned to Singur that Mamata looked somewhat relieved.
She cut short her speech, handed the microphone to Mitra and rushed off inside the office.
“Madan, tumi dekho ekhane,” she said with a smile before disappearing. (END) Source: The Telegraph
এতে সদস্যতা:
মন্তব্যগুলি পোস্ট করুন (Atom)
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন