(Top) Calcutta after the police firing that killed 13. (Below) Policemen march into Nandigram on the day 14 villagers were killed

Calcutta, July 21: For Mamata Banerjee, today’s rally was a long way from the first one she held over the police firing that led to 13 deaths in 1993.

Today’s rally also mourned the death of 14 people in Nandigram in 2007 and almost served as a curtain-raiser to her bid for Writers’ Buildings.

In 1993, it was a siege of Writers’ that had turned tra- gic. The protests and rallies she organised every year after that to mark the incident gave her an edge in Opposition politics but did not make her a credible candidate for power in Bengal.

Her profile as a street fighter grew over the years since 1993, but today’s rally saw Mamata trying to discard a part of her old image and acquire a new one — of being a responsible politician unveiling her vision of governance.

“There’s no doubt that Mamata has matured over the years and showed a great sense of composure in handling several issues. People who at one point of time had not been kind to the ways of her agitation not only tolerate but support them now. That shows how she has evolved and changed with each passing day. She is destined to govern Bengal one day,’’ said leader of Opposition Partha Chatterjee.

In 1993, Mamata had wan-ted to storm Writers’ Build- ings. Today, she spoke of removing the CPM through “peaceful, democratic” means.

In 1993, all she wanted was aggression. Today, she asked her activists to be “humble and modest’’.

The 1993 tragedy was the result of a violent road march led by the Youth Congress state president. Today, the Trinamul Congress chief sang a different tune: “Don’t put up blockades at the drop of a hat.”

Many in Trinamul wonder what it is that made this change happen.

According to a senior MP, in 1993 and a few following years it was agitprop politics that ruled her head and that had little to do with government policies.

“That was the principal reason for Mamata being seen as a temperamental leader only believing in the politics of agitation and demonstrations. Now, she has an emotive issue and with it a larger frame of politics that is related to government policies — agriculture, land and industrialisation of Bengal.”

For some years after 1993, she could create disruptions through street violence but it was Singur and Nandigram and the contentious land issue that swayed the people and cast a spell on them, said Congress legislature party leader Manas Bhuniya.

“The very complexion of Mamata’s politics changed with Nandigram and Singur. She latched on to the two, agitated across the state and succeeded in convincing the people that the CPM government was out to grab the land of the poor. That made the difference to her political career. The 1993 movement helped her to some extent grab Opposition space at the cost of the Congress. But her land agitation has prompted people to see Mamata in a different light and think about her as an alternative to the CPM,” Bhuniya added.

So in 1993, it was a Mamata road march that involved political workers. In 2009, she has peasants with her.

Not only the peasantry but a section of the intelligentsia and the extreme-Left also found an appeal in the Trinamul chief’s land movement, a CPM MP said. “Her march to Writers’ in 1993 was correctly described by Jyoti Basu as the march of vandals. But her movement on land and the 26-day fast she underwent on Singur impressed many intellectuals, extreme-Left and Left liberals. She was identified as one fighting for a cause. Earlier, the intelligentsia wouldn’t have discussed Mamata. Today, many of them were seen on a political stage,” the former MP said.

Mamata’s alliances with other parties didn’t work as an emotive political issue, but land and the people’s fear of displacement did.

She broke away from the Congress, formed Trinamul and allied with the BJP for the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. Three years later, her alliance with the Congress in the 2001 Assembly polls came a cropper. In the 2004 parliamentary elections, she again allied with the BJP but Trinamul’s performance was abysmal.

“It was only in the 2009 polls that Didi’s alliance with the Congress yielded rich dividends. And that’s because of the land-industry debate that she successfully handled,” said a close Mamata aide.