| Mamata Banerjee মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায় |
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|---|---|
| Chief Minister of West Bengal | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 20 May 2011 |
|
| Governor | M. K. Narayanan |
| Preceded by | Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee |
| Constituency | Bhabanipur (Vidhan Sabha constituency) |
| Member of Legislative Assembly | |
| Minister of Railways | |
| In office 22 May 2009 – 19 May 2011 |
|
| Preceded by | Lalu Prasad Yadav |
| Succeeded by | Dinesh Trivedi |
| Member of Parliament | |
| In office 1991–2011 |
|
| Preceded by | Biplab Dasgupta[1] |
| Succeeded by | Subrata Bakshi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 5 January 1955 Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Political party | Indian National Congress (1970–1997) Trinamool Congress (1997–present) |
| Spouse(s) | Unmarried |
| Residence | Harish Chatterjee Street, Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Alma mater | University of Calcutta |
| Profession | Politician Advocate Social Worker |
| Signature | |
| Website | West Bengal Government |
Mamata Banerjee (Bengali: মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়; Hindi: ममता बनर्जी, pronounced [mɔːmoːt̪ʰaː bɛːnaːrjiː]; born 5 January 1955) is the 11th and current chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. She is the first woman to hold the office. Banerjee founded All India Trinamool Congress in 1997 and became chairperson, after separating from the Indian National Congress.[2][3] Currently she is also in charge of nine key departments of the government of West Bengal, including Home, Health and Family Welfare, Land and Land Reforms, Information and Cultural Affairs, Minority Affairs and Madrassah Education, Agriculture, Power and Home (Personnel and Administrative Reforms) departments.[4][5] She is popularly referred to as "Didi" (meaning elder sister) to all her followers.
Banerjee pulled off a landslide victory for the All India Trinamul Congress in West Bengal by defeating the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, bringing to an end 34 years of Left Front rule in the state.[6][7][8] Banerjee previously served as a Minister of Railways twice, Minister of Coal, and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Department of Youth Affairs and Sports and Women and Child Development in the cabinet of the Indian government.[9] She opposed forceful land acquisition for industrialisation by the then communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers.[10]
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Mamata Banerjee was born to Gayetri and Promileswar Banerjee on 5 January 1955, in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She grew up in a lower middle-class family and started her political career in Congress. As a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks to become the general secretary of the state Mohila Congress (1976–80).[10] She was a college student in the mid-1970s when politics in Bengal began to accommodate the riffraff.
Banerjee graduated with an honours degree in History from the Jogamaya Devi College, an undergraduate women's college in southern Kolkata.[11][12] Later she earned a master's degree in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta. This was followed by a degree in education from the Shri Shikshayatan College. She also earned a law degree from the Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College, Kolkata.[13]
Throughout her political life Banerjee has maintained an austere lifestyle, never spending much money on clothes, cosmetics or jewellery and always with a cotton bag slung on her shoulder. She has remained single throughout her life.[14][15]
In the West Bengal Assembly elections of 2011, Trinamool Congress and congress parties combined, a move spearheaded by Mamata Banerjee, successfully won with over 77% of the total seats. This is considered a historic victory over the Left Front rule.
Banerjee started her political career in congress, 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.[16] In the 1984 general election, Banerjee became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever, beating veteran Communist politician Somnath 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.[17]
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.[18] She was discharged of her portfolios in 1993. In April 1996, she alleged that Congress was behaving as a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal. She claimed that she was the lone voice of reason and wanted a "clean Congress". At a private rally at Alipore in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee wrapped a black shawl around her neck and threatened to make a noose with it.[19] In July 1996, she squatted at the well of Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian parliament, to protest a hike in petroleum price, although she was a part of the government that instituted it. In that very time she grasped the collar 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 apologise. Later she came back as Santosh Mohan Deb mediated.
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 Communist government 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.[20]
In 1999, she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and was allocated the Railways Ministry.[17]
In 2000, Mamata Banerjee presented her first Railway Budget. In it she fulfilled many of her promises to her home state West Bengal.[21] 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 Rupasi Bangla Express, Sealdah-New Jalpaiguri Express, Shalimar-Bankura Arannyak Express and the Sealdah-Amritsar Superfast Express (weekly).[21] 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 was also hastened during her brief tenure.[22]
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.[22]
In early 2001, after making allegations against the BJP, Banerjee 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.[17]
On 20 October 2005, she protested against forceful land acquisition and the atrocities on local farmers in the name of industrial development 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. In soaking rain, Banerjee and other Trinamool Congress members stood in front of the Taj Hotel where Santoso had arrived, shut out by the police. Later, she and her supporters followed Santoso's convoy. A planned "black flag" protest was avoided, when the government had Santoso arrive three hours ahead of schedule.[23][24]
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, Banerjee hurled her resignation papers at the deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal in Lok Sabha. The provocation was the speaker (Somnath Catterjee)'s rejection of her adjournment motion on illegal infiltration by Bangladeshis in West Bengal. The motion was turned down by the speaker on the ground that it was not in the proper format.[25][26]
In November 2006, 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.[27] The Trinamul Congress MLAs protested by damaging furniture and microphones in the West Bengal Assembly.[27][28] A major strike was called on 14 December 2006.
Now in the 2009 parliament election where TMC was in alliance with UPA and people of West Bengal acted against the Left front and elected Congress-TMC alliance cccin 26 seats, which made Mamata Banerjee again the Indian Railway Minister for next five years.
In the 2010 Municipal Elections in West Bengal, TMC won Kolkata Municipal Corporation in a margin of 62 seats. TMC also won Bidhan Nagar Corporation in 16-9 seats margin. In 2011, Banerjee won a sweeping majority and assumed the position of chief minister of the state of West Bengal. Her party ended the 34-year rule.
The Nandigram violence was an incident in Nandigram, West Bengal where, on the orders of the Left Front government, more than 4,000 heavily-armed police stormed the rural area in the district of Purba Medinipur with the aim of stamping out protests against the West Bengal government’s plans to expropriate 10,000 acres (40 km2) of land for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to be developed by the Indonesian-based Salim Group. The police shot dead at least 14 villagers and wounded 70 more.
The SEZ controversy started when the government of West Bengal decided that the Salim Group of Indonesia[29][30][31] would set up a chemical hub under the SEZ policy at Nandigram. The villagers took over the administration of the area, and all the roads to the villages were cut off. A front-page story in the Kolkata newspaper, The Telegraph, on 4 January 2007 was headlined, "False alarm sparks clash". According to the newspaper that village council meeting at which the alleged land seizure was to be announced was actually a meeting to declare Nandigram a "clean village", that is, a village in which all the households had access to toilet facilities. The administration was directed to break the Maoist-backed Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee's (BUPC) resistance at Nandigram and a massive operation with at least 3,000 policemen along with armed cadre of the Marxist ruling party was launched on 14 March 2007. However, prior information of the impending action had leaked out to the BUPC who amassed a crowd of roughly 2,000 villagers at the entry points into Nandigram with women and children forming the front ranks. In the resulting mayhem, at least 14 people were killed.[32] Many people of the lower classes were made homeless due to this political carnage.[33] A large number of intellectuals protested on the streets and this incident gave birth of a new hope for movement to ouster the left from government headed by the CPI(M).[34][35][36] Mamata Banerjee wrote letters to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil to stop the violence promoted by CPI(M) in Nandigram. Agitation in Nandigram subsided, after the state government shelved the proposed chemical hub project.
Trinamool Congress performed well in the 2009 parliamentary election, bagging 19 MP seats, among them 5 women (including Banerjee), reiterating its faith in the Women's Reservation Bill. Its allies in congress and SUCI also got six and one MP seats respectively marking the best performance by any opposition party in West Bengal since the start of the left regime. Until then, the Congress victory of 16 seats in 1984, by the sympathy vote after the death of Indira Gandhi, was considered the best show of opposition.
In 2009, Mamata Banerjee became railway minister for the second time and announced a number of new initiatives in the railway budget. Some argued that these reflected her bias towards her home state, West Bengal, although she had lead initiatives to benefit the entire country. She decided to develop about 50 railway stations to be world-class stations with international-level facilities. These will be developed through innovative financing and public-private partnerships. Banerjee also declared the Railway Ministry's intention to develop another 375 stations as Adarsh (Ideal) Stations. Furthermore, she announced construction of multi-functional complexes in station premises for providing rail users facilities, they included shopping-malls, food stalls and restaurants, book stalls, PCO/STD/ISD/Fax booths, medicine and variety stores, budget hotels, underground parking, and the like. The railway minister announced that these complexes will also be developed by public-private partnerships. Banerjee also set up scholarships for the higher education of the female children of group D staff, to promote their economic independence. She proposed to open seven nursing colleges on railway land.[37] Banerjee also introduced new train services like “Duronto” and “Yuva” in the budget, the former the fastest train service in India.[38] To relieve women passengers during rush hour, Mamata introduced a Special Ladies Train on 19 July between Bandel and Howrah.[39] Later, she introduced more Special Ladies Trains , e.g. Kalyani-Sealdah and Panvel-Mumbai CST.[40]
Mamata Banerjee flagged off the Duronto Express – a nonstop train, fastest train of India between Sealdah and New Delhi on 18 September 2009.[41] The super fast Duronto Express train between Chennai and New Delhi was introduced on 21 September. Banerjee also took steps to spread railway in terror-hit regions of Kashmir. Anantnag-Qadigund Railway line was inaugurated in October.[42]
On 7 February 2010, Banerjee will start as many as nineteen new train services.[43] Due to repeated sexual harassment and/or sexual assault of India's women commuters, eight trains will be designated as women-only.[44]
Mamata Banerjee's All India Trinamool Congress along with SUCI and Indian National Congress Alliance won the state assembly election against the Left ruling party by securing 227 seats. Trinamool Congress alone won 184 seats with the INC winning 42 seats where the other ally SUCI secured one seat. Throughout the 34-year-regime, the Left Front had never won fewer than two-thirds of the 294 seats, but this time it could only manage 62 seats.
Banerjee was sworn in as Chief Minister of West Bengal on 20 May 2011. As the first woman Chief Minister of West Bengal, one of her first decisions was to return 400 acres of land to Singur farmers. "The cabinet has decided to return 400 acres to unwilling farmers in Singur," the chief minister said. "I have instructed the department to prepare the papers for this. If Tatababu wants, he can set up his factory on the remaining 600 acres, otherwise we will see how to go about it," she added.[45]
She has also been credited to solving the longstanding "Gorkhaland Problem" by setting up the Gorkhaland Autonomous Council. ,[46] thus fulfilling another of her campaign promises.
She has started various reforms in education and health sectors. Some of the reforms in the education sectors include release of the monthly pay of the teachers on the first of every month[47][48] and quicker pensions for retiring teachers.[49]In health sector "A three-phase developmental system will be taken up to improve the heath infrastructure and service,” Mamata Banerjee said."[50]
In fact she was instrumental in the rollback of the petrol price hikes [51] and the suspension of FDI in Retail Sector until a consensus is evolved.[52]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Lalu Prasad Yadav |
Minister of Railways 2009–2011 |
Succeeded by Dr. Manmohan Singh (pro tem) |
| Preceded by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee |
Chief Minister of West Bengal 2011–present |
Incumbent |
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