His successor couldn't be more different. I have heard Amit Mitra speak twice in public, and on both occasions he has dwelt at such length on his elegant dhoti-kurta-jawahar coat ensemble that it might have been a fashion show. As this column noted earlier, an even more luminous son of Bengal, Deshapriya (Beloved of the Country) Jatin Sengupta, always dressed for the occasion. A contemporary cartoon showed him swilling whisky in full evening dress while a bearer held out the obligatory khadi dhoti and kurta. The caption "Meeting ka kapra lao!" has passed into the language to symbolise political posturing.
Mitra's is reverse posturing. Appearances are deceptive, he candidly warned a gathering of suited and booted businessmen in a five-star hotel just before the Budget. He was really one of them and had shed his three-piece suit only to woo the "grass roots". Some might call it sartorial sleight of hand but truth to tell the grass roots couldn't care less if they have jobs. Bare bodies and loin cloths are usually best for that. Mitra claims employment has gone up by leaps and bounds. But since the wage Bill has fallen, nit-pickers will probably argue that his claim of creating "employment opportunities" rather than employment is like his other claim of "implemented/under implementation" industrial projects worth Rs 17,732.01 crore. We know from the Centre's Light Combat Aircraft that "under implementation" drags on for decades.
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Another explanation for the contradiction could be that since Didi overthrew the dictatorship of the proletariat, there's been no question of revolutionaries demanding overtime for chanting slogans during their tea break. Today's janata is happy to work more for less. Or even nothing. Anna Hazare says one reason for supporting Didi's prime ministerial ambitions is that she takes no salary. If so, she must be the original aam aadmi, a title she won't allow some johnny-come-lately Mr Muffler to grab. In fact, Kolkata's old Mango Lane may be renamed to prevent the Aam Aadmi Party activists claiming proprietary rights. The Muffler Man is also a bit of a quick-change artist. He went to Delhi's lieutenant-governor to be sworn in as chief minister with two ceremonial soldiers standing erect on either side of the muffler-enlarged head, but his head was back to normal size at the Confederation of Indian Industry's Delhi meeting. The muffler isn't integral to his brand image like Didi's flip-flop slippers or Mayawati's fashionably dangling handbag.
Flexibility is the hallmark of political astuteness. It's said that when British reporters asked Mahatma Gandhi if he was really going to see the king-emperor in a loin cloth, he replied, "Yes, and I'll take even that off if he doesn't concede swaraj!" Since two Lucknow MLAs peeled off their shirts the other day in protest (though Sourav Ganguly does it in celebration), Mitra can reverse the fashion and again don his three-piece if New Delhi doesn't relent on repayment relief on central loans. Bengal's peasantry will take the transformation in its stride but his ministerial colleagues may think the finance minister is, at last, appearing in his true colours by flaunting not his politics but his culture on a well-cut tweed sleeve.
Ashok Mitra would sneer it's "playing-at-politics". But politics is a game everyone plays. Left Front ministers played at the revolution that never was. Some of the officers who served them most loyally are now playing ministerial parts to savour the loaves and fishes they had enviously watched their former bosses enjoy. Now the chief minister, with a cabinet but no colleagues according to a recent book, is herself threatening to embark on the biggest game of all. With Anna playing Cupid, it might even be love doubles if Narendra Modi is Trinamool's partner.