New Delhi: With Mamata Banerjee and J
Jayalalithaa set to capture power in West Bengal and Tamil
Nadu respectively, India could for the first time boast of
four women Chief Ministers.
Shiela Dikshit of Delhi has the distinction of the
longest serving woman Chief Minister in post-independent India
having been at the helm of affairs for the past 12 years.
BSP supremo Mayawati has singlehandedly secured power in
the largest state of Uttar Pradesh four years back and her
victory at that time was seen as a defining moment in Indian
politics. The politically crucial state is going to polls next
year.
Mamata has in fact emerged as the 'giant killer' for
ending the 34-year-old Left front rule in West Bengal on the
single plank of doing away with the 'misrule' of Marxists.
It was a 'Mamata wave' that swept away the Left rule in
West Bengal as the Trinamool Congress leader, who floated the
party over a decade back after parting ways with Congress,
showed that she alone was the staunch opponent of the CPI(M).
Jayalalithaa was out in the cold for the last five years
in Tamil Nadu as also at the Centre, had her sweet revenge on
Karunanidhi's DMK despite setbacks in the last two Lok Sabha
polls and would be ruling the state for the next five years.
Jayalalithaa's single point campaign plank was to end the
"family rule" of the DMK in the backdrop of the 2G spectrum
allocation scam.
Incidentally, Sucheta Kripalani of the Congress was the
first woman Chief Minister of independent India having been at
the helm of affairs in Uttar Pradesh in the early sixties.
Nandini Satpathy of the Congress was the Chief Minister
of Orissa in early seventies while Shashikala Kakodkar of the
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party was Chief Minister of the then
Union territory of Goa for most part of the seventies.
PTI
First Published: Friday, May 13, 2011, 12:09