Mamata pens poetry on electoral defeat
Kolkata, Grief is flowing as poetry from
the pen of Mamata Banerjee while she struggles to come
to grips with her Trinamool Congress' debacle in the
parliamentary elections.
The fiery leader, who has gone completely quiet and is
virtually incommunicado, is spending her time ruminating
the stunning loss and doing another thing close to her
heart -- writing poetry. She is also painting.
Though she finally managed to say "we will come back"
many, many hours after the election results were out on
May 13, the Trinamool is now a wrecked house that its
leader will find it difficult to rebuild.
Of the
state's 42 parliamentary seats, the leftists bagged 35,
the Congress six and the Trinamool -- the principal
opposition party -- just one!
In the last general election in 1999, Trinamool and its
allies had captured 10 seats, the leftists 29 and the
Congress three.
While all her important leaders lost, Banerjee was the
only one to retain her South Kolkata seat. Her victory
margin had dropped by over 100,000 votes.
The
stunning loss has left her shocked and confined to her
modest single-storied house in a working class southern
neighbourhood that also doubles as the party office at
times.
Inside, the heartbroken leader spends hours penning
poetry that is mostly a vitriolic outburst against the
leftists and the Congress.
The latest one ridicules the choice of veteran Marxist
Somnath Chatterjee as the speaker of the Lok Sabha.
"Somnath speaker/Congress sticker, they
are all together/Is it a get-together?" read the first
few lines of the poem.
Banerjee, who has over half a dozen titles to her
credit, mostly about her political struggle against the
leftists, is also writing Bengali limericks lampooning
the alliance between the leftists and the Congress.
Trinamool sources said these short funny
verses would be used by her supporters in the coming
days to campaign for the revival of the party.
India News
