Facing Anti-Incumbency, Mamata Bets On Street Politics

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee once again placed confrontation at the centre of her politics on January 8, when she entered the residence of political strategist Pratik Jain just as the Enforcement Directorate began a search. Jain is the director of I-PAC, the political consultancy that has advised the TMC since 2021 and is widely credited with playing a key role in the party’s landslide Assembly victory that year. According to Mamata, the agency’s objective was not law enforcement but the seizure of confidential TMC poll material, including candidate lists, campaign strategy documents, SIR-related papers and electronic data. The episode reinforced an image Banerjee has cultivated over decades as a political “street fighter”. Supporters point to her early days as a Youth Congress worker protesting against Jayaprakash Narayan, her emergence as a “giant-killer” after defeating Left heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, and decades of street battles against the Left that culminated in the Singur and Nandigram movements and the fall of the 34-year Left Front government in 2011. Senior TMC insiders cite precedents where confrontation brought political dividends: her February 3, 2019 dharna after a CBI raid on then police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha scam case; her February 23, 2021 confrontation with a CBI team probing a coal smuggling case involving Abhishek Banerjee and his wife; and her May 17, 2021 six-hour stay at the CBI office as several TMC leaders were arrested in the Narada sting operation case. Leaders argue such confrontations help counter anti-incumbency, mask internal factional rifts and deflect attention from economic management and alleged scams. As elections approach, Didi has returned to the mode that has long defined her career: fighting her battles on the street.