Mamata Banerjee’s antics bother Congress

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee is not giving any respite to the Congress from her follies. First she banned a host of a newspapers from government libraries in the state, and now her government arrested a Jadavpur University professor for drawing cartoons that reportedly made fun of her and union railways minister Mukul Roy.

“I do not know the specifics of the case, but Congress has always stood for the right and liberty of freedom of expression, and is the part of the democratic ethos of the country,” said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari.

Ordinarily, the Congress would have condemned such an incident if it had happened anywhere in the else country, but the party’s need to ensure that Banerjee whose party the Trinamool Congress is the biggest supporting partner of the ruling UPA-2 coalition is kept in good humour restrains it from such forthright expression of views.

“We can see that she is finding it difficult to make the transition from an agitator to an administrator. But there are extenuating circumstances like the fact that all the government unions are controlled by the Leftists whom she had displaced after a 34-year-long rule, and this makes the changes difficult,” said a senior Congress MP.

But as Bannerjee’s follies keep mounting, the Congress is finding it increasingly difficult to defend these actions. “We cannot be seen to be harsh while criticising state governments, because then it is seen as an assault on the federal structure of the constitution,” the MP added.