Opinion

Mamata Banerjee guarantees a welcome to a hero in Kolkata in Oxford

March 29, 2025

MAmta Banerjee goes to Oxford to deliver a lecture. A handful of people in the audience answers hostile questions on issues that are like red rags for a bull for them: RG car rape and murder in Kolkata, rise of communal politics in West Bengal, and industry flights from the state, such as Singur to Tatas. Banerjee recognized her suffering as a “left, ultra-left and some communal forces”, but does not flow in a fit because she was used to the past. Instead, she kajols them – “brothers”, she calls Hekler – and stare at them to change the site in a political stage in Kelog College.

This noise 10-minute performance transforms Banerjee’s otherwise Oxford into the headlines at home. When she returns to Kolkata, she is guaranteed to welcome a hero from her supporters.

In other words, politically super-lover Banerjee changed the position of a knot in Oxford, in which she emerges as a victim of a conspiracy by her hekler, which is identified as members of the Left Students Federation of India (SFI). An adverse situation has been converted into an opportunity to stop the CPI-M, the original party of Hekelers, which is his political rival back home.

But is this a total victory? Banerjee went to Oxford for the success of his welfare schemes to empower women in West Bengal. But it was overched by Fiysco in his lecture. She went to woo the most strict, a direct Kolkata -London flight. But has he found anything on that front? In public, no, he is not. Instead, Fiyesko has changed the dazzle on RG car rape and murder on the claims of Banerjee on the claims of divisive Hindu-Muslim politics in the state, and industrial investments, which should be less opative.

And all these warts went on a performance in front of a foreign audience.

Did Banerjee’s Operation Oxford convert her into a better place or simply Boomerang?

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Overgrowth and underprain

Buzz is, Banerjee and his entry of bureaucrats and journalists knew that something was cooking. He was estimating protests not only in Oxford but also at his first stop in London. Nothing happened in the capital city. But before going out for Oxford, a member of his entry, TMC spokesperson, Kunal Ghosh, declared on a social media Reel Oxford was most likely to protest against the rape and murder of the RG car doctor. Using cricketing idioms, she said that Mamata Banerjee was padded to hit all for six.

And he did to a great extent. He removed the question of RG tax, saying that the matter was Deputy Chief and Center in charge. He even took a potshot on the protesters, stating that he all knows how he crowded protests in Kolkata in August last year. In the Hindu state of Bengal, he shot back all the “castes” (SIC).

But when it came to the question of investment in the industry in the state, Banerjee stumbled on the number, confused millions and crores and millions of rupees, and stumbled in the names of companies who actually invested in Bengal. Given that his entire journey in Britain was looking for investment, this loss should have been avoided.

Perhaps Banerjee knew all the relevant data from the heart, but the hecking was surrounded by abrasive questions from the students. The aggressive question he is not really used to return home.

There is a stick to defeat it with BJP

However, Banerjee’s hosts asked him the most mild questions – which journalists call “gentle” or “lollipops” or “vanilla questions” – so that an interview can end on an excited, happy note. But Banerjee’s answers have come under the BJP scanner and they are being labeled anti -Indian. In recent years, similar allegations were made against Rahul Gandhi after various lectures at foreign places.

The question about India’s economy to be ahead of India’s economy to become the world’s largest in 2060 was that instead of Vanilla North, Banerjee said, “I will tell that (SIC). There are many things that I should not speak here, internal matter, in external matters. I can’t have some other opinions …”

The BJP is describing this as an insult to the nation and is firm to give milk in the last drop.

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Where Mamta showed the spine

Can Operation Oxford bother Banerjee in the future? Or did he hit the bull’s eye with his performance? Back to Kolkata on his flight, Banerjee would have no doubt how things will eventually change, especially as the 2026 assembly elections and a possible fourth term as Chief Minister is exactly one year away.

But there is a unique deed for which Banerjee is entitled to an unreserved hat tip. He did at the Kelog College that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not yet taken the risk of doing home or abroad: without a sensor on live TV, without stopping, without stopping. Rare.

Monidipa Banerjee is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @monideepa62. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)