KING: The pawn, who claims to have got eight chief ministers and Narendra Modi elected to power, is now acting as though he is the king!

By Rajan Narayan

We are not against Mamata-didi. She is the gutsiest women leader since Independence. She has more guts than the late Indira Gandhi. She single handedly fought and won the Assembly election against the CPM government in 1984. She did not then have the support of I-PAC. Mamata inflicted a humiliating defeat on Narendra Modi’s BJP with help from Prashant Kishor in 2021. In Goa Prashant Kishor has usurped the power of Mamata-didi . Prashant Kishor has become a threat to democracy and to Mamata-didi!

I UNDERSTAND that the senior most director of I-PAC Rishi Kumar Singh, wants to know why I am against the Trinamool Congress? I would like to state unequivocally that I have nothing against the TMC. In fact, I consider Mamata Banarjee the toughest woman politician in the country. Unlike Jayalalitha or Mayawati, Mamata had to take on the CPM which had been ruling West Bengal for 34 years. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Which is what had happened to the CPM which many considered as a so called people’s party.
Mamata took on the CPM which had become a party of gangsters or goonda. She had the guts to oppose Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the then chief minister of West Bengal. The then West Bengal CM like Babush Monserrate in Goa had wanted to sell the lush green paddy fields of Singur and Nandigram to the Tatas for setting up their Nano car factory.

challenging cpm

Didi rightly opposed the conversion of agricultural land as farming is the life blood of the people of West Bengal. Farming gives you perennial income. If you destroy your agriculture you destroy life. Mamata fought and won the battle of Nandigram. Along with Nandigram she also won the state of West Bengal. She inflicted a humiliating defeat on the all-powerful BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. She sacrificed her safe constituency and deliberately took on a defector from the throne in Nandigram.
Mamata sacrificed her personal interests for the greater good of the party and the people of West Bengal. In the process though she won two-thirds majority in West Bengal against the BJP, she lost her own seat Nandigram by a narrow margin. But it had served a larger purpose in keeping Amit Shah and Narendra Modi focussed on Nandigram so that the rest of West Bengal would not come under pressure of the BJP.
Mamata-didi won the battle of West Bengal even though Modi and Shah held 200 rallies. Modi even insulted Mamata by referring to her as a fallen woman by teasing her with his male chauvinistic “Di-di, Di-di!” This boomeranged as the people of West Bengal were enraged. It was Mamata who won the elections twice over, first against the CPM in 1984 and after that the BJP in the WB Assembly elections held in 2020.
Mamata has every right to aspire to be the prime minister of India. She is the only woman leader who has the guts of the late Indira Gandhi who was called the only “man in the Congress!” So I have nothing against Mamata-didi’s Trinamool Congress, I have nothing against Mamata-didi, I am a great admirer of her because as an urban Naxalite I am totally against the fascist BJP.
As Prashant Kishor himself pointed out a political party cannot tell you what to eat. He was referring to the ban on beef by the BJP. A political party cannot tell you whom to marry. He was referring to love jihad. A political party cannot supress the freedom of the press. But this is precisely what Prashant Kishor and I-PAC are doing in Goa. They have converted `OHeraldo’, a paper I founded and built with my blood, sweat, tears and toil into the most influential newspaper in Goa, into godi media!
Mamata-didi did not choose the most corrupt MLA Luizinho Faleiro to lead the Goa Trinamool party in Goa. Luizinho himself has admitted he had never met Mamata before he signed the deal. So the political marketing agency and the master strategist wants power in his own right. The pawn has decided he will be the king! Prashant is not satisfied with being kingmaker. After having conquered nine states or at least that is his claim, including the by-elections in West Bengal, power has gone to his head.

threat to didi

I am opposing I-PAC because it has become a threat to Mamata Banarjee. When the time comes Prashant Kishor may want to become prime minister himself. As we pointed out before power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was not Prashant who won the elections in Bihar for Nitesh Kumar. It was not Prashant who won the elections for Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. It was not Prashant who won the elections for YSR Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. It was not Prashant who won the elections for Stalin in Tamilnadu. It was not Prashant who won the elections in Maharashtra for Udhav Thakre. They were mass leaders in their own right.
Yes, Prashant Kishor’s strategies helped them and gave them an edge . But in Goa’s case the TMC has monetised politics. In the other states he was the backroom man, in Goa he is the face of the Trinamool Congress. Maybe he inspires to be the chief minister of Goa. We rejected merger with Maharashtra. We will not let a man from Bihar dictate terms on who should be the chief minister of Goa. Goans have the insight to choose their own chief minister.

i-pac super salesmen

We appreciate I-PAC’s research and digital marketing skills. We appreaciate their public relations skills. But how different are they from the PR agency run by Radia, who was involved in the telecom scam and represented not only Mukesh Ambani but even Ratan Tata? Radia, in fact, went to the extent of getting T Raja , the most corrupt DMK politician, as the telecom minister, so that her clients could get Spectrum for their mobile phone business.
So please don’t act as mercenaries. Don’t act as paid dalal. Be the respectable professionals you have been so far. Do not convert Goa into a Kharedi yatra. This is an insult to Mamata Banarjee. Welcome to Goa, Mamata-didi. With your help we will get rid of the BJP. This is not my view alone. It is the perception of the people of Goa. We do not see Derek O’Brien or Mahua Moitra annoucing candidates. We see Luizinho Faleiro, the most corrupt Goan politician getting, Congress workers out of revenge. The marketing people should stay in the back ground. Do the Job you are hired for. Don’t try to take over Goa or impose Bengali culture on Goa. We are proud of our own distint identity!