Dubai: She promised, 18 years ago, she would never again step inside Writers' Building, the secretariat of West Bengal government, unless she was accorded the honour and respect that she thought she deserved.
On May 20, 2011, Mamata Banerjee was sworn-in as Chief Minister — the first woman to ever ascend to the seat of the state's most powerful public office. And with her entry, or rather ‘re-entry', into Writers' Building yesterday, soon after the swearing-in ceremony in Kolkata, Mamata indeed turned a new and most cherished leaf in her long and eventful political career.
Yesterday's swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhavan (governor's house) was attended by the outgoing chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, a significant gesture that may well decide the course of opposition politics in the state in the days ahead.
"A political struggle spanning across three decades has finally come to fruition and as part of the Trinamool family, I feel extremely happy. We are humbled by this achievement. This is a historic day for us, but this is not the end.
"It is the beginning of a long road towards achieving a bigger dream, fulfilling the wishes of the people of Bengal," Trinamool vice-president and spokesperson, Derek O'Brien, told Gulf News from Kolkata after the swearing-in ceremony yesterday.
Seeking justice
In 1993 Mamata was thrown out of the Writers' Building by the police following a three-hour demonstration outside the then chief minister, Jyoti Basu's cabin. Mamata, then a Union minister and Congress leader, wanted the Left Front government to do justice to a physically challenged rape victim from Nadia district.
When Mamata insisted on staying put until she was given an audience by the chief minister, Special Branch officers of Kolkata Police physically removed her from Writers' Building and she was locked up inside Lalbazar, the headquarters of the city police, for hours before being released on bail.
It is indeed a day that Mamata will not forget in a hurry. She promised not to enter Writers' Building ever again.
Even during the meeting with the then chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, over the Singur agitation, Mamata's only precondition was the meeting should not take place in Writers' Building, a condition that Bhattacharya had to accept at the insistence of the then governor, Gopal Krishna Gandhi.
Yesterday, Mamata garlanded a statue of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, former chief minister of the state, just outside the Writers', and for a brief while, it seemed the security ring around her would be breached by the frenzied crowd that had gathered to catch a glimpse of the new chief minister.
This probably prompted Mamata to make an appearance on one of the balconies of the haloed red building to greet those who had come to witness history.
CM Mamata's time starts now.
