COVID-19: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s balancing act between pandemic and politics

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has faced many challenges in her political career but nothing is more daunting than dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. Maintaining a balance between lives and livelihood will be a do or die situation for her and will play a decisive role in determining her fortune in the 2021 Assembly elections.

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The maverick politician is having a tough time in juggling between her roles as a Chief Minister and a firebrand opposition leader. Her dilemma became evident over the issues of Inter Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) visiting the state for evaluating lockdown measures.

As a chief minister, she could not outright refuse to cooperate with the Centre in this regard but being too pliant may have an adverse effect on her anti-BJP image. This becomes significant in view of the fact that BJP will be her principal rival in the 2021 Assembly elections.

So, Banerjee said that she had no issues in cooperating with the visiting IMCTs but alleged that there was “breach of protocol” on part of the Centre as the teams were sent without prior intimation to the state government.

Her balancing act became evident in issues such as the Shramik special trains, meetings with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre’s special economic package.

She lashed out at the Railways for sending several Shramik special trains to the state in a short duration. Alleging that this may result into a spike in COVID-19 cases in Bengal, Banerjee asked whether in the name of running “Shramik Express they (Railways) want to run Corona Express.”

She repeatedly accused the Centre of politically targeting Bengal over the COVID-19 issue. She also said she didn’t gain anything from meetings with the prime minister. Banerjee dubbed Centre’s special economic package as a “big zero.”

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo has carefully kept up her anti-BJP stand while responding to Home Ministry’s letter claiming that lockdown measures were being violated in certain areas of the state, which were incidentally minority-dominated areas. Banerjee said that the “communal virus” is not the priority for her government.

“The COVID-19 situation will definitely dominate the 2021 Assembly elections. We are doing everything in our power to increase the people’s faith on us,” said a senior TMC leader.