From Mamata Banerjee’s show of authority to Mayawati’s sudden turnarounds over their nephews, legacy politics continues to overshadow merit, putting family ties above loyalty and ability. BY KUMKUM CHADHA
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did right when she made it clear that she is supreme and her’s is the last word in the Trinamool Congress or the TMC: a Party she formed after parting ways with the Congress, nearly three decades ago.
It was in December last year that Banerjee took the unprecedented step of saying: “I am still there. I am the final word”.
Obviously, this was not an off the cuff remark. It was necessary to clear the confusion about a political heir.
It was in 2011 that Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek made a soft entry into politics through the youth wing. His aunt, Mamata Banerjee, facilitated his entry by creating a new platform, Yuva.
It was a parallel organization to the youth wing headed by mass leader, then in the TMC, Suvendhu Adhikari.
Abhishek’s entry caused enough heartburn: it not only undermined Adhikari’s clout and hold but also sent a signal of the bloodline getting precedence over loyalists. It is therefore not without reason that when Adhikari quit the TMC, he had said: “I did not drop in using a parachute nor did I take a lift. I took the stairs, step by step”.
This is clearly not what Abhishek can say about himself.
Within three years of his steering Yuva, he took the plunge in active politics. In 2014, Abhishek contested and won his first election from Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency.
In 2015, when Mamata Banerjee shifted all her belongings, including her treadmill, to her nephew’s residence in New Delhi it signaled that her bloodline will carry forward her political legacy.
That perhaps heralded the advent of Abhishek being a clear number 2 in the Party.
Even though it is not clearly spelt out, the youth wing is seen as a springboard for successors. Remember Congress’s Sanjay Gandhi who too made his debut through the Indian Youth Congress and later rose to be a de facto Prime Minister often overturning decisions that his mother Indira Gandhi took.
While Abhishek could not emulate Sanjay’s heft and style, he surely accelerated his political rise “by taking the lift,” as Adhikari put it, instead of taking the stairs “step by step”.
