With an eye to the future: Is Mamata the Harkishan Singh Surjeet of 2022?

Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the Presidential election: They are on another election that will take place in 2024

The 2004 Lok Sabha election saw the Congress get more seats than expected, but not enough to form a government on its own. It needed allies and, in order to keep the BJP out, the Left offered its support, based on commitment to a Common Minimum Programme. As the Samajwadi Par­ty (SP) was an ally of the Left in UP, the SP rode piggyback, believing it too was going to be part of the government. It thought wrong. While the CPI(M)’s Harkishan Singh Surj­eet, the man who helped build ma­ny secular alliances, was invited to the first strategy meeting to