Calcutta, April 19: Trust Comrade Karat to come up with something as unoriginal as “goongi gudiya” in Bengal, not the mirth-making “Amul Baby” his party colleague had served up in Kerala.

Prakash Karat this evening referred to Mamata Banerjee as “goongi gudiya” (dumb doll) in an indirect reference that drew an unwitting parallel with Indira Gandhi.

“She is going hammer and tongs after the (Left) Front in Bengal. She is opposing everything we are doing here. But when the UPA government raises the prices of essentials… the price of petrol and diesel, she says nothing… her voice is not heard. Delhi mein woh goongi gudiya ho jati hai (she becomes a dumb doll in Delhi),’’ the CPM general secretary told an election rally at Metiabruz.

If Karat’s criticism was scathing, it was lacking in originality. The term was famously sprung on Indira Gandhi in 1966 by Ram Manohar Lohia, the socialist leader.

Bengal leaders are not expected to lose sleep over copyright violations but they are unlikely to forget what happened after Lohia, who passed away a year later in 1967, called Indira a “goongi gudiya”. She snatched the socialist plank and strode across the political landscape in such a manner that admirers and rivals heaped on her sobriquets like “Durga” and “the only man in the cabinet”.

Marxism does not condone superstition but the weak-hearted among the Bengal Left leaders will be praying that Karat has not reminded voters the state has a leader with the potential to outsmart them.

The jury is still out on the fallout of “Amul Baby” — the phrase used by Kerala chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan to describe Rahul Gandhi. But Marxist attempts at name-calling or resurrection of once-biting coinages have not paid too many dividends of late.

In 1998, shortly after Sonia Gandhi took up active party work, Jyoti Basu had ridiculed her by saying she was “merely a housewife” alien to the world of politics. Eventually, Basu and his party had to ally with Sonia’s Congress to keep out the BJP.

Like Karat today, wife Brinda, too, had dug out a barb from the past in 2007 after the Nandigram stand-off. The CPM politburo member had prescribed Dum Dum Dawai — a slogan of the sixties advocating public thrashing for the corrupt — for Opposition politicians, blaming them for the continuing trouble there.

Nandigram has since turned the course of politics in Bengal and the Left has suffered successive poll setbacks.

The no-nonsense Karat also dealt the BJP card in Metiabruz, which has a high minority concentration. Karat today reminded the gathering that the Trinamul chief had once been part of the BJP-led NDA government and that she would have no qualms about rejoining them for the sake of achieving power.

“She and her party can do anything to achieve or stay in power. It was Trinamul that enabled the BJP to set foot on Bengal soil,” he said.

The CPM leader warned voters that the Trinamul-Congress combine would dismantle the ration system if it came to power as these parties represented the rich.