In a bid to give a rejoinder to the recently-launched Didi ke Bolo campaign, which calls upon the people to call up a phone number and place their problems to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, a booklet titled Mukhomantri kei Bolchi has been brought out comprising burning issues of the state to the chief minister. Penned by leader of the Left Front Legislative party Sujan Chakraborty, the topic ranges from widespread violence, the crisis and revival of Bengal Chemicals, the situation in Darjeeling, attacks on legislators, dearness allowance of government employees, rolling back of cess on petrol and diesel, corruption in the admission process at the under graduate level, transparency in the appointment of teachers to name a few.
Didi ke Bolo has been dubbed to be a “cut and paste” effort of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat in the foreword of the booklet by the Left Front Legislative Party. The title is an endeavour to invoke the chief minister’s name which seeks to superimpose the persona of a leader of the ruling party of the state on the chief minister’s office. Although questions asked to her have resulted in prison term for Shiladitya Chowudhury of Jungle Mahal, it was pointed out.
Listing a litany of violence on Opposition party activists, principally from CPI-M, police preferring to look the other way especially when the ruling party supporters are not at the receiving end and other incidents like social ostracisation have boiled down to an overall deterioration of the law and order situation comprise the contents of a letter. Another missive to the chief minister refers to the plight of the depositors duped in the Sarada chit fund scam. Instead of going hammer and tongs at the Trinamul Congress government, some of the letters call upon it for help.
A case in point being the chief minister’s good offices being called upon to prevent Bengal Chemical slipping into red after it has posted profits. But then the trend is aimed at to point out what is considered to be the slips and highhanded functioning of the government like the police lathi charge on para-teachers in Kalyani after switching off the lights. Efforts to stifle the dissenting voices ~ be it of the Opposition parties or that of any aggrieved ~ have been drawn attention to in most of the letters.