Keeping ally Mamata Banerjee happy is not easy, the Congress is finding out the hard way. The job not only involves putting up with the railway minister’s whims and fancies but also helping keep her house in order.
Unable to control maverick party parliamentarian Kabir Suman, the Trinamool Congress chief recently assigned finance minister and Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee the not-so-enviable job of persuading him against going public with his protest of the anti-Maoist Operation Green Hunt.
While Mamata has her views on Maoists, Suman, a Left-wing radical and musician in the mode of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, has gone a step further and even accused his party chief of having betrayed the cause.
Things, however, went a bit too far on Friday when he declared his intention to protest Operation Green Hunt by playing pro-Maoist songs on his guitar on parliament premises.
Embarrassed, Mamata ran to Pranab, who had just delivered a difficult speech defending his budget in the face of opposition unity. He proved up to the task.
The government’s chief crisis manager had to bring his experience and political acumen into play to explain to Suman that his protest was “illogical”.
“Pranab Babu made it clear to Kabir Suman that his mode of protest would embarrass his leader and not serve the purpose anyway.
“You are protesting a legitimate law-and-order exercise, how is that helpful?” he reportedly told the Trinamool MP.
“You may have your individual opinions, but you are a member of a political party and bound by its ideology and stands.
“After all, for the seat you won [Jadavpur], at least five party workers at every booth put in an effort. So, how can you act according to your individual dictates?”
Suman has for now abandoned the idea of strumming his guitar for Maoists, through it is not clear if he did so at Pranab’s behest.
