On the afternoon of March 31, the Vivekananda flyover in Jorasanko, Kolkata, collapsed. Within hours over 20 lay dead, over 80 injured. Mamata Banerjee cancelled a political rally, and hastened to the accident site, a small table and chair were set up for her as she supervised rescue operations, even yelling instructions to the police through a megaphone.
She sat amidst the debris, chaos and human tragedy, risking derision, but placing herself in the centre of suffering. Some scorned this as VIP disaster tourism before an election, others said it was merely a photo-op and a cover up for the corruption of her regime. But in the TV images it was impossible to miss that in the ruins of the truncated Read More
