Sometime mid-July, BJP leader Roopa Ganguly made her by now all-too-well-known, "rape remark". In a bite-burst to a television channel, the president of the Bengal BJP's women's wing said people who were backing chief minister Mamata Banerjee should send women from their families to Bengal and see if they could survive even a fortnight without getting raped. The former actress matched her words with roll-of-the-eyes, gestures and a shrill pitch of tone. The comment elicited outrage and criticism. An ugly exchange between Trinamul leaders and Roopa followed. An FIR was lodged against her. Soon after, the state Criminal Investigation Department summoned Roopa for questioning in connection with the north Bengal child trafficking case.
On July 24, the party named state secretary Locket Chatterjee the new president of the state BJP's Mahila Morcha. It was said the decision had been taken keeping the 2019 panchayat elections in mind, especially as Roopa, also a Rajya Sabha MP, had her hands full and had to spend long spells in Delhi. A week after her anointment, The Telegraph speaks to Locket over phone.
There is the promise of a meeting but Locket has been busy with party work - protests, public meetings, visit to Sandeshkhali in North 24-Parganas where a 61-year-old was allegedly gangraped recently. A lot of her work takes her out of the city and into the zillas. To top it all there is this new responsibility. The only time she can call her own is between journeying.
Like Roopa, Locket too is from the Bengali film industry though her recall value as an actress is way less. She started her career playing second lead and got so typecast that she could never quite move out of that image thereafter, as she has herself admitted. Her political innings, however, does not seem to be in any such danger; at least not for now.
Did she have an idea this promotion was coming? "I had a sense that I would get some new responsibility. I was not sure what," her reply is to the point. She does not try to dodge an invitation to comment on her predecessor's remark either, but first the former classical dancer sets the stage. She is Roopa's junior in the Bengali film industry. Was prepping for her Class X boards when Roopa was already famous as Draupadi. When she joined the industry, "Roopa di" had already left for Bombay. So, for the longest time the two of them were aware of each other's existence but had little to do with each other. "It would be incorrect to say we were or are the best of friends. Usually that happens with peers," says Locket - not that we asked.
You are beginning to wonder if she will ever get to the real question, when she does. She is aware of what has been said, the angry reactions and she understands those sentiments. Then comes a "but". " Shob shomoye ki manush guchhiye bolte paare moner kothata?... Is it always possible to express oneself succinctly? She [Roopa] wanted to say that atrocities against women in Bengal have increased. Despite a woman chief minister at the helm, women in the state are not safe." Meter perfect. Melody - neither too sweet, nor grating.
For someone who got into politics courtesy Mamata Banerjee, Locket pronounces her name - always in full - with cold impersonality. Time and again she has spoken out about how she felt "claustrophobic" in the Trinamul. But why did she join it to begin with? "In 2012, Mamata Banerjee was talking about paribartan. I thought I could be part of that great change. Putuler moto haat naarbo aar jakhan jekhane jete bolbe shekhane giye amake abhinetri hishebe use korbe, eta ami chaini... I didn't want to be treated like a clockwork doll."
When Locket joined BJP in 2015, the then state BJP president, Rahul Sinha, introduced her as " Didir Locket" - that's how close people thought she was to the CM. The two haven't spoken since. Says Locket, "Ekbaro kotha hoyni."
The phone connection is poor, the line keeps snapping. The hiatus between lost and found calls is time enough to scroll through Locket's Twitter page.
Between her Twitter debut in 2012 and 2015 - which is also when she was with the Trinamul - there are barely any visuals. The odd shoot, photographs with co-stars... What do they make of her political adventures? Locket says she doesn't keep in touch with too many people from the industry. "Politics has penetrated and spoilt the spirit of the place. People are scared to keep in touch. I don't blame anyone."
Beginning February 5, 2015, it is a different timeline altogether, a different persona. At work in Bongaon, Siliguri, Asansol, Basirhat, West Midnapore... Interventions. Celebrations - Rath Yatra, Chhat, Vijaya Dashami. Reports of interventions. Protests. Trinamul baiting. Herself riding a bicycle in Mayureswar.
Mayureswar is in Birbhum, lair of Trinamul's Anubrata Mondal. Locket made her Assembly debut from here. Anubrata had made many an incendiary remark including the one about making polling agents of the opposition party "vanish" on (Assembly) election day. Locket talks about the time the vehicle she was travelling in was attacked. " Bhangchur (vandalism), shashano (threats), phone- e humki (threatening phonecalls). Beriye jaan ekhan theke (get out)." No specifics, no histrionics either; she leaves it to us to make what we will of her disjointed account.
Locket lost Mayureswar. "I knew I wouldn't win. And that was not even the point." For the first time she sounds animated, her pitch changes. Either she is a better actor than Tollywood ever gave her credit for or she is a keen politician. She stresses how the women of interior Bengal welcomed her, connected with her. Isn't that what we call being star-struck? She is vociferous. "Not abhinetri. Actress howar jonyo hoy na... In the entire campaign only one or two asked for my autograph."
The connection snaps yet again.
When we reconnect, she asks if I've got the not being an actress bit. She continues, " Shobai kintu netri hishebei dekhechhe... They connected with me in my capacity as a leader, not as an actress."
According to Locket, her biggest takeaway from her campaigns is her insight into the life-conditions of Bengal's women. But wasn't she a member of the state's Women's Commission? She was. She recalls the daily letters the commission would be inundated with, the incidents that made headlines - alleged sexual harassment of a female student in Jadavpur University campus; a woman in Birbhum who had nettle leaves rubbed on her privates when her brother joined the BJP... Locket says that despite belonging to the ruling party, she couldn't do anything. " Aporadh, aporadh; shasti, shasti; satyi, satyi; mithyeta mithye. Kintu dol-er colour dekhiye egulo-o palte jay... What is wrong is wrong, what is right, right, and where punishment is required it must happen. But I learnt political colours can transform facts." She adds, "I was told: Let it be. No need to get into nitty-gritties."
Speaking of threats to women's security, recently the streets of Calcutta witnessed Ram Navami processions in which women were seen carrying arms. Locket defended it in a TV debate saying possession of arms did not presuppose attack; it could also mean the armed were responsible for their own defence. Bengal is that unsafe a state for women - even now, she hammers the point again and again and again. In the same programme, she had argued that Ram Navami was not a BJP-sponsored event but a Hindu one and BJP leaders who were Hindu had merely chosen to participate in it. BJP had never attributed Id and Muharram rallies and processions as Trinamul-sponsored events, she had shot back.
So one can expect party members to engage very closely with the minority in Bengal? Locket cannot seem to emphasise enough how that is being done already. After a good-natured, routine jibe at the media for not doing enough to promote the "good work", she cries sabotage. "This [state] government has created this communal narrative. It is spreading and consolidating the impression that we are for a certain community and not for the others."
She talks about the party's work for minority women, engagement of party functionaries in the demand for the abolition of triple talaq. "If we didn't care for this community, why this roar of support?" She reminds you that Trinamul has been supporting it. "They are not thinking about women's empowerment."
And what about the social media messages supposedly from the BJP camp slandering Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Rabindranath Tagore, and decrying the Bengali staple - fish? She has obviously heard it all because her answer drowns out the question. "Mamata Banerjee je bhabe politics ta korchhen, shudhu politics-er jonyo politics korchhen. Maane, dhukte debo na, gayer jor... She is doing politics for the sake of politics. Bullying and sabotage. Everything is about keeping the BJP out of Bengal," the shards of allegations keep coming. "They are aiming for the Bengali sentiment and attributing the attack to us. All lies. We are all for respecting icons. It is they who have introduced something like the Singur andolan into school textbooks."
Locket is about to reach her destination. We ask her what is it with the double bindi. Is she trying to fit into a certain image of the "successful" BJP woman leader? Or is there some kind of an internal party memo that requires female leaders to look a certain same way? "No, no, no... It is part of family grammar, family aesthetics. That and something I picked from Mamo di (pronounced mawmo)."
Pause. Long pause from this end. "Hello. Hello," Locket's voice floats up. "Are you there? As I was saying, my mentor Mamata Shankar..."
Ah. Always a name in common.
tetevitae
Locket grows up in Dakshineswar, a north Calcutta suburb
Her father is a purohit or Hindu priest; his side of the family is descended from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Dev
1980s: While in school she joins Mamata Shankar's ballet troupe
Her career as an actress begins with television soaps in the 1990s, followed by Bengali films and, of course, jatra or theatre
Some of her films are Chha-e Chhuti, Bye Bye Bangkok and Necklace
2011: At an event, she meets Mamata Banerjee, who invites her to join Trinamul. A year later she joins the party
2015: At a press conference, she announces her decision to quit Trinamul and, in the run-up to the Assembly elections of 2016, joins the BJP
Contests from Birbhum and loses. But in the coming days her work as state secretary does not go unnoticed and she is made president of the state BJP's Mahila Morcha in 2017
