Even as jubilant Trinamool Congress supporters celebrated outside her house at 30 B, Harish Chatterjee Street here on Thursday, party chairperson Mamata Banerjee maintained a calm countenance.
“Many are asking me, ‘Didi why aren’t you smiling?’ When people smile you don’t need to,” Ms. Banerjee told presspersons after it became clear that the Trinamool was heading towards a landslide victory. Call it her charisma or political genius, since 2009, under her leadership, the Trinamool has been winning all the elections. That the party has won a near two-thirds majority with 45 per cent votes being polled in its favour, making it clear that she is the most important leader in the State.
If the 2011 Assembly poll victory was in reaction to her call of Poribartan (change) to oust the 34-year Left Front rule, the verdict in 2016 is an assertion of people’s faith in Mamata’s leadership.
Green all the wayOn the road outside Ms. Banerjee’s house, it was a green show all the way, when supporters smeared in green assembled to have a glimpse of their leaders, holding aloft garlands and sweets. Amid the beating of drums, party workers gathered to congratulate her, raising slogans that rhymed with Khamata (power) in Bengali.
Addressing presspersons, Ms. Banerjee skirted questions on whether she harboured prime ministerial ambitions but reiterated that she had experience of working at the Centre in different Ministries, including Railways.
“In future a new alternative may also emerge,” she said when pressed about a third front and the larger role she can play in national politics.
Assuring support for key legislation such as the Goods and Services Tax, she spoke about the role of her party in Parliament.
“We have ideological differences with the BJP but anything positive for the people, we will not be negative,” Ms. Banerjee said on the role of her party in the Rajya Sabha.
She did not mince words in lashing out at the Congress for forging an alliance with the CPI(M) in the polls. “The biggest loss in the poll has been for the CPI(M). It [tie-up] has been the greatest blunder for the CPI(M) for State politics and for the Congress, it is a blunder for their national politics,” she said.
“In 2004, I was the lone MP for my party but I never compromised. If you compromise your ideology, you lose everything. If your character is lost, everything is lost,” she said.
Swearing-in on May 27Ms. Banerjee called a meeting of newly elected MLAs at her residence for Friday where they would elect their leader. The government would be sworn in on May 27, she said.
