Salted rivalry

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is on a spree to reverse the Left Front legacy by scrapping all their schemes and starting new ones. But one Left Front scheme she is keen to re-start is distributing salt through the public distribution system which was discontinued many years ago. Notwithstanding the good intentions, there is already a buzz among her political rivals that Banerjee wants to buy loyalty through salt. An old Hindi proverb that says once you have partaken of somebody’s salt you can’t be disloyal is coming in handy for her detractors.