In Delhi, Banerjee Shows National Ambitions

By NIHARIKA MANDHANA

Ratcheting up the pressure on the central government, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee organized a rally in Delhi on Monday as part of a series of protests to demand a rollback of the government's new economic policies.

“These policies will destroy the lives of the common man,” Ms. Banerjee said to a crowd of a few thousand people gathered at Jantar Mantar. “They will punish the ordinary people of this country.”

The rally, held in the political capital of the country rather than in West Bengal, home to Ms. Banerjee's traditional support base, marks a strategic step in the regional leader's attempts to make inroads into the country's national political scene, analysts say, after she left the governing United Progressive Alliance to protest the new measures.

“She is positioning herself as an important national leader,” said C.P. Bhambhri, a political analy st. Much like other regional leaders, like Mulayam Singh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh and Narendra Modi of Gujarat, who are widely believed to harbor ambitions for national positions, including the prime minister's office, Ms. Banerjee too is projecting her party's relevance outside of West Bengal, said Mr. Bhambhri.

This strategy appeared to play out at the rally on Monday, where workers of the Trinamool Congress, Ms. Banerjee's party, chanted, “We have won Kolkata; now it is Delhi's turn.” Ms. Banerjee announced a 48-hour dharna, or protest, in Delhi on Nov. 19 and 20 and an ambitious tour of other Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and states in southern India.

Clad in her trademark white-and-blue cotton sari and rubber slippers, Ms. Banerjee portrayed herself as a “clean” leader, untainted by allegations of corruption that have plagued senior Congress leaders and unafraid to take on the central government. “She is not only the tigress of Bengal, but of the whole country,” said Sharad Yadav, a leader of the Janata Dal (United) Party, at the rally.

On Monday, she expressed solidarity with farmers, factory workers, vegetable vendors and other poor people in the country. “I am not in politics for any personal gain,” she said, “but only to serve the people of this country.”

With the weakening of the Congress Party, Ms. Banerjee, with a small but significant block of 19 parliamentary seats, has emerged as an important leader. She is boosting her national profile, observers say, with an eye on the 2014 elections, when neither the Congress nor the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to win a majority.

While Ms. Banerjee is popular among the rural poor in Bengal, she has, in recent years, earned a reputation for being an intolerant and mercurial leader. Politically, she remains unpredictable, analysts say. “She is fickle minded. She is temperamental,” said Mr. Bhambhri. †œBut she is also very, very clever.”

In the run-up to Monday's rally, she led a scathing Facebook campaign against the government: “Reforms are meant to usher development for the people,” a post said. “Now-a-days, the trend is, whenever any anti-people decision is taken, it is taken in the name of reforms.”

Earlier this month, the embattled Indian government introduced several economic policies aimed at revitalizing India's stalled economy, including a controversial measure that would allow foreign investment in India's retail sector and pave the way for foreign retailers like Walmart to set up shop in India. This move was met with widespread protests by other politicians, led by the Trinamool Congress, who argued that small Indian shop owners and vendors would be squeezed out.

The government also announced a rise in the price of diesel and a cap on the number of subsidized gas cylinders, measures widely criticized as “anti-poor.”

The Co ngress Party, however, has dismissed Ms. Banerjee's attacks. “After Mamata Banerjee came to power in West Bengal, there is no industrial development and no jobs were created,” the union minister V. Narayanasamy said in a televised interview on Sunday.

The central government can't be like that, he said. “The center has to march forward for the purpose of fulfilling the wishes and aspirations of the people.”