This refers to the editorial "An embattled Ms Banerjee" (September 11). Didi's long street-level confrontations with the ruling Left in Bengal had so shaped in her the instincts of a commando stalking Kolkata lanes, that despite three years in office, she trusted no one; even as she got the minister of railways from her own party sacked suspecting infidelity. On the Teesta issue, for the same reason, she ignored the pragmatism that would have placed the state's progress ahead of her personal perceptions. If Bengal had gone into hibernation under the Left, under Mamata Banerjee the state had become completely insular in regional chauvinism.
The Left, for all its blunder of nurturing a reckless cadre that ruined industry in the state, had largely stayed clear of scams and rackets. That the same cadre had since switched its loyalty to the Trinamool Congress was a singular political gain for Banerjee. But she could now be paying the price for misplaced trust on some of her own inner coterie.
R Narayanan Ghaziabad
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