Mamata Banerjee (Bengali: মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়, pronounced [mmt̪ʰaː baːneːjeː]; born 5 January 1955) is the leader of the Trinamool Congress and Leader of the Opposition in the state ofWest Bengal. She is the founder and Chairperson of the party and has been the currentRailway Minister of the Republic of India. Mamata is popularly known as "Didi" - the elder sister to all her followers in West Bengal. Her oratory was all about connecting with ordinary people with ordinary dreams. She is noted for her opposition to Special Economic Zones and industrialization in West Bengal at the cost of agriculturalists and laborers.Mamata Banerjee was born to Shri Promileswar Banerjee and Smt. Gayetri Banerjee on 5 January 1955, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India. She grew up from a lower middle-class family and then started her political career with the Congress. And, as a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks to become the general secretary of the state Mahila Congress (1976-80). She hasn't received a classy upbringing. Her father couldn't send her to an English-medium school. She was a college-going adult in the mid-seventies when politics in Bengal had begun to accommodate the riffraff. Uninhibited, she jumped up on the bonnet ofJaiprakash Narayan's car. Throughout her political life she maintained an austere lifestyle and never spends money on clothes, cosmetics and jewellery and slung a cotton bag on her shoulder. Mamata had another dream and loved the political rostrum and wanted to stand at a height which gave her sense of a pedestal and wanted to address an audience who'd believe her. Not that she carried the genes of a Demosthenes. She has remained single throughout her life.[1][2]Later, she attended Calcutta University studying Arts and attaining bachelor's and master's degrees. Her B.Ed. was done from the Sikshayatan College, Calcutta and M.A. from theUniversity of Calcutta respectively. Later, she completed LL.B. from the Jogesh Chandra Choudhury College of Law, Kolkata.[3]
he started her political career with Congress(I), and as a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks of the local Congress group, and remained the General Secretary of Mahila Congress (I), West Bengal, from 1976 to 1980.[4] In the 1984 general election, she became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever, beating veteran Communist politicianSomnath Chatterjee, from the Jadavpur parliamentary Constituency in West Bengal. She also became the General-Secretary of the All India Youth Congress. Losing her seat in 1989 in an anti-Congress wave, she was back in 1991 general elections, having settled into the Calcutta South constituency. She retained the Kolkata South seat in the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 general elections.
In the Rao government formed in 1991, Mamata Banerjee was made the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development. As the sports minister, she announced that she would resign, and protested in a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, against Government's indifference towards her proposal to improve sports in the country(this never happened).[5] She was discharged of her portfolios in 1993. In April 1996, she alleged that Congress was behaving as a stooge of the CPI-M inWest Bengal. She claimed that she was the lone voice of protest and wanted a "clean Congress". At a public rally at Alipore in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee wrapped a black shawl around her neck and threatened to make a noose with it.[6] In July 1996, she squatted at the well ofLok Sabha to protest against the hike in petroleum price, though she was a part of the Government. In that very time she clasped the coller of Amar singh, MP of Samajwadi Party, in the well of the parliament. In February 1997, on the day of railway budget presentation in Lok Sabha, Mamata Banerjee threw her shawl at the railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan for ignoring West Bengal and announced her resignation. The speaker, P. A. Sangma, did not accept her resignation and asked her to apologize. Later she came back as Santosh Mohan Deb mediated.
Trinamool Congress
In 1997, Mamata Banerjee came out of the Congress Party in West Bengal and established the All India Trinamool Congress. It quickly became the primary opposition to the long-standing Communistgovernment in the state. On 11 December 1998, she controversially held a Samajwadi Party MP, Daroga Prasad Saroj, by the collar and dragged him out of the well of the Lok Sabha to prevent him from protesting against the Women's Reservation bill.[7]
In 1999, she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and was allocated the Railways Ministry.In 2000, Mamata Banerjee presented her first Railway Budget. In it she fulfilled many of her promises to her home state West Bengal.[8] She introduced a new biweekly New Delhi-Sealdah Rajdhani Express train and four express trains connecting various parts of West Bengal, namely the Howrah-Purulia Express, Sealdah-New Jalpaiguri Express, Shalimar-Bankura Express and the Sealdah-Amritsar Superfast Express (weekly).[8] She also increased the frequency of the Pune-Howrah Azad Hind Express and extension of at least three express train services. Work on the Digha-Howrah Express service also hastened during her brief tenure.[9]
She started non-stop trains called Duronto Express; from one major station to another, without any stops in between. Fully Air Conditioned Chair Car Trains called Yuva Express were also started in her tenure.
She also focused on developing tourism, enabling the Darjeeling-Himalayan section with two additional locomotives and proposing the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited. She also commented that India should play a pivotal role in the Trans-Asian Railway and that rail links between Bangladesh and Nepal would be reintroduced. In all, she introduced 19 new trains for the 2000–2001 fiscal year.[9]In early 2001, after making allegations against the BJP, she walked out of the NDA cabinet and allied with the Congress Party for West Bengal's 2001 elections, amidst speculation that the move could unseat the Communist government. She returned to the cabinet in January 2004, holding the Ministry of Coal and Mines portfolios until the 2004 Elections, in which she was the only Trinamool Congress member to win a Parliament seat from West Bengal.
On 20 October 2005, she protested against the industrialization policy of the Buddhadev Bhattacharya government in West Bengal. Benny Santoso, CEO of the Indonesia-based Salim Group had pledged a large investment to West Bengal, and the West Bengal government had given him farmland in Howrah, sparking protest. Despite soaking rain, Mamata and other Trinamool Congress members stood in front of the Taj Hotel where Santoso had arrived, shut out by the police. Later, she and supporters followed Santoso's convoy. A planned "black flag" protest was avoided, when the government had Santoso arrive 3 hours ahead of schedule.[10][11]
Mamata Banerjee suffered further setbacks in 2005, when her party lost control of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the sitting Mayor defected from her party. In 2006, the Trinamool Congress was defeated in West Bengal's Assembly Elections, losing more than half of its sitting members.
On 4 August 2006, she hurled her resignation paper at the deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal in Lok Sabha. The provocation was the speaker's (Somnath Catterjee) rejection of her adjournment motion on illegal infiltration by Bangladeshi's in West Bengal. The motion was turned down by the speaker on the ground that it was not in proper format.[12][13].
In November 2006, Mamata Banerjee was forcibly stopped on her way to Singur for a rally against a proposed Tata Motors car project. Mamata reached the West Bengal assembly and protested at the venue. She addressed a press conference at the assembly and announced a 12-hour shutdown by her party on Friday.[14] The Trinamul Congress MLAs protested by damaging furniture and microphones in the West Bengal Assembly.[15] [14] A major strike was called on 14 December 2006.
Now in parliament election 2009 where TMC was with alliance with UPA and people of WestBengal acted majorly against the Left front and elected Congress-TMC alliance in 26 seats, which made Mamata Banerjee again the Indian Railway Minister for next 5 years.
In the 2010 Municipal Elections in West Bengal, TMC won KOLKATA CORPORATION in a margin of 62 seats.Also won Bidhan Nagar Corporation in 16-9 seats margin..
The West Bengal government wanted to start a chemical hub in the Nandigram area for employment generation. The Haldia Development authority headed by Mr. Laxman Seth hosted a notice giving the idea of land acquisition in Nandigram.[16][17] Trinamool Congress started a blockade. The Chief minister demanded the notice be torn off.[18] On 14 March the cops stared firing and killed 14 villagers, when cops were sent to remove the blockade of around 6 months by Mamata Banerjee's violent movement there. Her party agitated local people to stand against authority.[19] Many common people were homeless due to this political carnage.[20] A large number of Intellectuals protested on the streets and this incident gave birth of a new movement to ouster the left from government headed by the CPI(M).[21][22][23] Mamata Banerjee wrote letters to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil to stop the violence allegedly promoted by CPI(M) inNandigram.[24][25][26] Agitation in Nandigram has subsided, after the State Govt. shelved the proposed chemical hub project. Mamata Banerjee gained a huge political benefit from all this.[27]
Trinamool congress performed well in the 2009 parliamentary election, bagging 19 MP seats, among them 5 women (including her), reiterating her faith in the Women's Reservation Bill. It’s allies Congress and SUCI also got 6 and 1 MP seats respectively. This is the best performance by any opposition party in West Bengal since the start of the left regime. Till date the congress victory of 16 seats in 1984, by the sympathy vote after the death of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, was considered the best opposition show.
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