When Mamata Banerjee, a 5-foot-tall dynamo in flip-flops, finally defeated the Communists last year after decades of misrule here, she became one of the most powerful but unpredictable politicians in India. Now the country is left to guess whether she will announce on Tuesday that she intends to try to pull down India’s governing coalition.
Ms. Banerjee is the chief minister of West Bengal, a state more populous than Germany, and she leads a regional party with 19 ministers in Parliament, a crucial block of votes for the governing United Progressive Alliance. Indeed, she is so influential that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid her a special visit on a recent trip to India, a highly unusual honor for any regional leader.
Read more at The New York Times, published 17 September 2012.
When Mamata Banerjee, a 5-foot-tall dynamo in flip-flops, finally defeated the Communists last year after decades of misrule here, she became one of the most powerful but unpredictable politicians in India. Now the country is left to guess whether she will announce on Tuesday that she intends to try to pull down India’s governing coalition.
Ms. Banerjee is the chief minister of West Bengal, a state more populous than Germany, and she leads a regional party with 19 ministers in Parliament, a crucial block of votes for the governing United Progressive Alliance. Indeed, she is so influential that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid her a special visit on a recent trip to India, a highly unusual honor for any regional leader.
Read more at The New York Times, published 17 September 2012.