Convict Queen
Though AIADMK leader Jayalalitha was debarred from contesting the elections on grounds of her conviction in a corruption case, she was sworn in as chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Will her aggressive game plan work? And should popular mandate overrule judicial verdicts?

Great Call Of China
Indian entrepreneurs are eagerly joining the swiftly growing queue to set up shop in China.
The land once considered forbidden has suddenly become
the hottest destination for Indian businessmen.

Looking East
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Malaysia may have achieved little on Quattrochi's extradition and India's greater ties with ASEAN, but it showed there is more to their bilateral relations than these two issues.

Mother's Day
Stalinist methods played a vital role in the humiliating finale of M. Karunanidhi's dynastic ambition.

Readying For Nukes For the first time after India became a nuclear power, the Army stages a nuclear war game to check preparedness.

STATES: WEST BENGAL

Keeping Left

As Bhattacharya steps out of Basu's lengthy shadow Mamata prepares to meet an uncertain future

By Sumit Mitra

SURE TOUCH: Bhattacharya

All through the campaign for the assembly elections in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee never tired of cocking a snook at Buddhadev Bhattacharya-thought of as no more than a protégé of Jyoti Basu and disparaged as "temporary CM". On Friday, as the 56-year-old Marxist leader was sworn in as chief minister by Governor Viren J. Shah, the irony of fate marked the destiny of both the winner and the vanquished. While Bhattacharya had won the mandate to restructure the government, to make Bengal "the number one state once again", the loser was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, with hysterical outbursts against everyone around-Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill ("he behaved like a CPI(M) cadre"), Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee ("the Centre has taken revenge on me for having quit the NDA") and Bhattacharya ("rigging master").

LOST LOOK: Mamata
Why Didi Lost
Mamata kept insisting on an end to Left rule without specifying how the Trinamool would be different. Her breaking away from the NDA alliance and joining hands with the Congress perplexed a core group among her supporters. Her populist style alone couldn't overcome the carefully nurtured grassroots network of the communists. Mamata's image as an unpredictable leader alienated voters. She underestimated Bhattacharya as an opponent and her mud-slinging only added to voter dissatisfaction.

The reason for such clouding of the mind is all too apparent. Belying all poll predictions, the Left Front (LF) won 198 of the 294 seats in the Assembly. Mamata's nine-member Lok Sabha team is about to split, with at least four MPs about to rejoin the ruling NDA next month. The Trinamool-Congress alliance in Bengal, forged weeks before the election and which won 87 of the 294 seats, also looks ripe for a crack-up as powerful Congress leaders have begun shifting the blame for defeat on her. There are rumblings even within the 60-member Trinamool, with more than 20 partymen cosying up to the Congress. "Mamata has no political future," declares A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, the Congress satrap of north Bengal's Malda district. In the district considered its stronghold, the Congress lost four of the 11 seats to the LF due to the Congress-Trinamool rivalry.

Across the board, there is sullen resentment about Mamata's dictatorial style of functioning and, as a newly elected Trinamool MLA put it, her tendency to "overrate her personal charisma". Four years ago, when Mamata wrenched her supporters out of the Congress to form the Trinamool, the general feeling was that it would voice the people's genuine resentment against the LF's seemingly unending incumbency. What passed unnoticed in the exuberance of the moment was the fact that the Congress had improved its performance between 1991 and 1996, raising its strength from 43 to 82. The split came when Somen Mitra, the then state Congress chief, started setting up booth-level units-a must to counter the organised election machinery of the CPI(M). The 1997 split jolted the Congress. "We have wasted these four years (since 1996) chasing the Mamata mirage," Mitra says. As the recent results show, the Trinamool-Congress alliance has failed to make any headway in areas where the Congress was not in control till 1996. It is also doubtful if the parties can forge an alliance before the next Lok Sabha poll in the event of a premature demise of the NDA Government.

MetroScape

Delhi Cinema:
"Flicks Down Under"

Mumbai Restaurant:
Karma

Kolkata Restaurant:
Teej

The Madhya Pradesh governor orders a CBI inquiry into a land allotment by the chief minister to the Nai Duniya group, kicking off a constitutional crisis. INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Neeraj Mishra reports in
Conflict Of Interest.