Kolkata: The July 21 martyr’s day rally carries much significance to both Mamata Banerjee as well as Trinamool Congress. The incident of police opening fire on a section of youth Congress activists on the streets of Kolkata while trying to block roads towards then secretariat Writers’ Buildings, 28 years back, virtually catapulted Mamata Banerjee as a leader of standing in the state, who could take the political fight to the doorsteps of the Left Front.
Since 1993, Mamata Banerjee has been commemorating the day as martyr’s day and gradually turning into a podium to address her party workers and the people on the whole about her future political course. Mamata had always reserved her most caustic remarks for the Left Front, the CPI(M) to be precise, to deliver from the dais of the July 21 martyr’s day rally. She had also utilised the stage to make her mark on the political spectrum of Bengal when she temporarily shifted the rally from its usual venue of Esplanade to the Brigade Parade grounds in 2011. Mamata was sworn in as the Chief Minister of West Bengal that year.
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Covid protocols have prompted Mamata to deliver her July 21 address virtually for the second consecutive year this time, but what has raised many eyebrows in the state is her complete silence on her bête-noire, the CPI(M). The same CPI(M), whom she vehemently criticized and made her mark among the people of Bengal. Her anti-Left Front relentless push had eventually made her the only credible alternative in the state against the Left Front, leaving the traditional Left Front vs Congress rivalry, way behind. That very Left Front went completely missing from Mamata’s 2021 edition of the July 21 speech, which she delivered from her residence in Kalighat and which was streamed live across the state and also at the Constitution Club in Delhi.
What stuck out in sharp contrast from her earlier July 21 speeches was, even after dealing a thumping defeat to the Left Front in 2011 and then again in 2016, Mamata Banerjee was never short of strong critical words for the Left at her martyr’s day rally. Barring, yesterday. She was also the mum of the Congress, which had a political alliance with the Left Front in the run-up to the recently concluded Assembly elections.
