Bengali politics is so eggalitarian, it's done bro
Another day, another attack on an Opposition leader in Bengal. Firebrand Mahua Moitra once again received a number of eggs that cracked on her fair face in the unfair of Bengal politics. Bengal has always taken pride in its bhadralok gentry, its cultural forwardness, and a civilised populace. And that pride has a rightful place. But when it comes to politics, all the pride goes for a ride on the Hooghly. That's a googly even Google can't unscramble. The state that has the proverbial chicken’s neck is suffering from a shortage of eggs. The opposition is weaponising the shortage and the ruling party workers are weaponising the eggs.
When Trinamool was in power and the saffron side was the Opposition, crude bombs were hurled at the latter. Now the BJP is in power, eggs are hurled at Trinamool leaders at a time when egg prices have gone up sharply. How dim-witted can one be, to pelt dim at Opposition leaders whose only demand is that dim stay dime-a-dozen? Mahua Moitra, egg on her face, gave a big shoutout to Honourable Justice Dipankar Datta, who, according to her, had advised her to face the BJP rule as a freedom fighter faced bullets. She had to face the eggs, head them, and shoulder them, all in the same over.
You must have seen some Trinamool leaders, including local area strongmen, a garland of slippers around their neck walking on eggshells as men and women pelted eggs on them. Yellow, egg white bhi lo. Bengal remains the one state that serves you politics on a plate, fluffy omelette included. A GenZ miracle worker from UP who sells amulets and hates omelettes landed in Kolkata and asked Bengalis to keep their non-bhej away from the Durga Ma’s Protima. That was enough to bhejafry the bhadralok, who egged the non-bhadralok, who scrambled to throw eggs at the preacher boy’s photo and garlanded it with the very slippers they had used to beat it with. That Hindutva poster boy’s poster was the only face the opposition folk could beat with a "Rok Sako to Yolk Lo!".
For the TMC, it’s been ova all over. Right after the “maybe” of April turned into the “it’s done, bro” in May, Abhishek Banerjee was in Sonarpur and met with eggs, shoes, and stones, in that order, a full plate of grievance. Under the cricket helmet he wore, his spectacles cracked, his kurta tore, and the crowd chanted chor, chor, proving that in Bengal an election result arrives garnished, like deviled dim with extra longka. Dada had clearly anda estimated the anger against Didi.
Saugata Roy, Trinamool’s veteran Dum Dum MP, drove to Nimta police station to file a complaint. Before he could lodge the FIR, his car was lodged with full anda bhurji treatment as a crowd chanted the same chor chorus.
Madan Mitra did not once crack under the Saradha scam probe or a jail term. In Kamarhati, an egg managed what the CBI could not. A hardboiled leader was soft-boiled.
Kunal Ghosh, Trinamool’s chief spokesperson, was egged bang outside Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence while giving a media byte, a sunny-side-up moment delivered live to camera, splattered on face and shirt within shouting distance of the party high command.
Soumitra Banerjee was pelted on his way to court in Raniganj. Sabyasachi Dutta caught eggs mid-police escort. Saokat Molla was egged while being taken into custody. Sujoy Hazra’s car was egged in Midnapore. An age-old ritual
A state that prided itself on Coffee House adda and Nobel laureates is now conducting its fowl politics at the intellectual temperature of a soft-boiled egg. If this is not an eggjistantial crisis, what is? Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya, gloating from his side of the crease, said Trinamool MLAs are now frightened to step out of their houses and that party offices across the state are being locked up in fear. He thinks eggs are a deterrent, oblivious to the fact that it is the same old dysfunction, hard-boiled once again, only wearing a saffron costume this time. Cruder than the crude bombs, if only less injurious.
There is an old warning about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Bengal never learned it. It put all its eggs, and its politics, and its bhadralok pride, into a single basket called power, and now everyone is walking on the shells. You cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, they say, but nobody warned this state that the omelette would be its own reputation, and the eggs would be its own leaders. Bengal wanted poriborton. It got poultry. Its politics hasn’t evolved, it has been poached, and in Bengal now, that smells exactly like a rotten egg.
