DOLES AT THEIR DOORSTEPS

Not even her critics doubt Mamata Banerjee’s street-fighter cred—there is easy recall of many moments in her political career that offer evidence. Of her early days as a Youth Congress activist, during the Emergency, atop iconic socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan’s car in Kolkata. Or the blockade of a national highway for eight days during her party’s Singur land agitation in 2008. That feistiness appears undiminished even in the more recent dharnas she has staged against the BJP-led central government and its policies. The other feature of Mamata’s political flair has been her connect with common folk, her keen sense of what matters in their lives.