Goa is not West Bengal, Didi!

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee landed in Goa to launch her 'oust-outsider BJP' campaign in the State to make inroads into the tiny State of 40 Assembly seats. She is on a mission-mode to oust the BJP from power in the country now-a-days. After her third successful attempt at capturing power in West Bengal, Mamata didi seems to believe she is the only non-BJP leader with pan-India appeal.

Her admirers could attribute this confidence to a certain linear thinking. It is analytic, methodical, rational and logical in the current circumstances in the country as the BJP has successfully alienated a good section of the society from itself. Minorities constitute a large chunk of the same. West Bengal being a stronghold of minorities, her maths fell in place and she could successfully utilise her 'street power' too to browbeat the opposition. It is a different matter that she herself lost initially in Nandigram.

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking, Albert Einstein once said. In the process of learning, understanding, and assimilating knowledge, thinking plays an important role. The approach we use to solve a problem or implement a plan or strategy begins with our process of thinking. But there are certain pitfalls here too. Our assimilation of knowledge or understanding of a situation could be wrong. West Bengal is different in every sense. The way the State thinks or acts is not the same as the rest of the country.

Mamata sounded more bemusing when she tried to cajole (that is the right word as she tried to flatter them and coax them) the Goans to make them see her as an alternative to the BJP and the Congress. The Congress may be down and out in the country. If Mamata expects Goans to vote against the BJP because the Bengalees did so, she may find herself on the wrong side of the fence. "In Bengal we love fish, you also love fish. But you have sea fish. It is good for your health. You love football clubs; Bengal also has them. Last time, the slogan was 'Khela Hobe,' there will be a game, and football is our heart just like you. Folk culture, Bengal and Goa, is the same thing," she averred.

Didi also asked Goans to oust the BJP from power as "they are not local." She claimed she was a local. Once again she said "I am a Hindu. I am also a Brahmin and an Indian." If she is a local in Goa, then the BJP too is. In Bengal she harped on the same points. She called Narendra Modi and Amit Shah outsiders as they were from Gujarat. Bengal accepted her line, but Goa may not. There is something amiss to her logic.

What Prashant Kishore said about Congress the other day also applies to Mamata. The BJP is a stayer. No doubt, Goa has more than 25 per cent Christian population and this perhaps makes Mamata presume it would be a walkover. This pattern of thinking does not present her as a pan-Indian leader anyway. Such over-the-top attempts cannot fool people everywhere. Mamata should tread the ground more sanely.