May 05, 2026 17:11 pm IST

Opinion | Mamata Banerjee Brought Down The Left, But Never Quite Learnt From Its Fall

Mamata took over the Left's playbook 15 years ago, but failed to rework it to craft a new politics. In the end, the people of Bengal got more of the same: musclemen, corruption, and bad governance.

Arati R Jerath Arati R Jerath Columnist

Arati R Jerath Columnist

When Mamata Banerjee first took West Bengal by storm in 2011 with the twin slogans of "poribortan" (change) and "Maa, Maati, Manush'' (mother, earth, mankind), she came as a breath of fresh air in a state desperate to unshackle itself from 34 years of Left rule.

Fifteen years later, her heady slogans lie tattered in a corner of West Bengal's psyche. From the bhadralok in urban areas to the rural peasantry, from the tribals in the north and the south to the Scheduled Castes and OBCs scattered across the state, disillusionment with Mamata appears to have outstripped disgust with the Left, to hand the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a stunning breakthrough in a state whose cultural chauvinism was long considered impervious to the appeal of Hindi heartland Hindutva.

Long after the dust has settled and the first BJP chief minister assumes office in a state that the party sees as the biggest jewel in its crown after Uttar Pradesh, Mamata and other Opposition leaders will continue to question how the verdict was shaped by aggressive state interventions, such as the Election Commission's hurried Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls (which disenfranchised........

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