New Delhi, May 10 -- By declaring that "enemy's enemy is my friend, our first enemy is the BJP," former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have done something almost unthinkable in Bengal's bitter political history: signal a tactical reconciliation with the very Communist movement she spent decades dismantling.
For over thirty years, Mamata Banerjee's political identity was built on relentless opposition to the CPI(M)-led Left Front. She did not merely challenge the Left electorally; she waged a cultural and emotional rebellion against what she portrayed as an arrogant Marxist establishment that had exhausted Bengal's economic vitality and democratic spirit. From the violent confrontations of the 1990s to Singur and Nandigram, ...