NEW DELHI: Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the East Indian State of West Bengal walked non-stop for 15 kilometers at the head of rally of supporters and party workers to mark one year of the fall of Marxist rule after three-and-half decades of power. Banerjee, who a year ago swept the communist parties out of power from the capital Kolkata winning the provincial elections handsomely, claimed that most promises made by her party were fulfilled in just the first of her government's five years in power. The Communists had been ruling West Bengal uninterrupted since they first came to power in Kolkata in 1977. Last year's election however saw the Leftists getting drubbed by the Trinamool Congress, a party founded by Banerjee after breaking away from the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress party. Banerjee, who made a speech during the rally, claimed that with her government coming to power in Kolkata, the state had limped back to a normal democracy. She alleged that torture was common place in the tenure of communist rule during which 55,000 people were killed. Banerjee made a strong start in governance delivering within a month her promise of returning to farmers their land forcibly acquired for a factory of Tata Motors to make their globally acclaimed low cost ‘Nano' car. An agitation of the land-losing farmers spearheaded by Banerjee forced the Tata's to abandon their plans and shift to Gujarat. But certain recent moves of her government, particularly a tightening of screws on the media – both alternative media and the mainstream press — have earned her the ire of many of her own sympathizers.
