Mamata Banerjee
  Mamata Banerjee (মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়) the 11th and current Chief Minister of West Bengal is the first woman to hold the office. Her party Trinamool Congress performed well in the 2009 parliamentary election, bagging 19 MP seats. Before the 2009 parliamentary elections she forged an alliance with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by Indian National Congress. The alliance won 26 seats. Banerjee joined the central cabinet as the railway minister (second tenure). In 2011 Mamata Banerjee pulled off a landslide victory for the TMC in West Bengal by defeating the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) -led Left Front government, bringing to an end 34 years of Left Front rule in the state.
  Mamata Banerjee on September 18, 2012 delivered a stiff blow to the UPA government by withdrawing her support in protest against the hike in fuel prices and the decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail, reducing the regime to a minority. Mamata said her ministers will submit their resignations to the President on Friday after Zumma prayers at 3 pm, unless UPA government  to accept the  near-rollback of diesel price hike, a 100% hike in the cap on the number of subsidized LPG cylinders, and putting FDI in multi-brand retail on hold.

                      
  Victory for "maa, mati, manush"  
  The 34-year-old regime of the Left front has finally crumbled. Mamata Banerjee has created history by winning a majority  in West Bengal. In Kolkata, all roads led to Mamta Banerjee's residence in Kalighat on May 16, 2011. "This is a complete victory of democracy. This is a historic verdict. After 34 years, Bengal has got new freedom," the woman, who brought the Left to its knees in its bastion, told a crowd of thousands that kept cheering her."This is a victory for "maa, mati, manush" (mother, earth, people). I am grateful to the people of Bengal," she said. "This is a verdict against years of exploitation, agony and oppression."  Of all the 294 results declared on Friday, the Trinamool Congress secured 181 seats while the Congress bagged 42 seats. Two seats went to Trinamool partner, the SUCI.
    Defeat of the Left Front in West Bengal 
   Mamata Benerjee impressed West Bengal's poverty-weary citizens with a call for change. Bengalis wanted their state to prosper like the other states of India. Tired of strikes and lockouts, they rejected the red symbolism that had burdened them for decades. They were desperate for some of growing India's shine to rub off on them. People were so fed-up of Left rule that they blamed the Communists for every malady in Bengal. Left Front rule allowed Bengal to stagnante in agriculture and industry.The Communists made some huge mistakes. They banned computers, saying it would take away jobs. They also banned English in schools, a step that pushed the state back at least 20 years from where other states stand today. The World Bank in 2009 said Kolkata was the worst major city in India to do business in. As a result of these blunders, the Bhadralok were fed up with the administration, and many Bengalis felt that they were not equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century.  Marxist veteran leader Jyoti Basu, the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000, was India's longest- serving Chief Minister.  
  On March 14, 2007, 14 villagers were killed in police firing in Nandigram, the site for a proposed chemical hub in East Midnapore district. Gopal Krishna Gandhi the then governor in a an indictment of the state government had said, "The news of deaths by police firing in Nandigram this morning has filled me with a sense of cold horror." The 'recapture' of Nandigram by the CPI(M) from the Trinamool Congress was to follow, which the Chief Minister was to later justify as 'paid back in their own coin'. Strongly disapproving the 'recapture', Gopal Krishna Gandhi had said  "the manner in which the recapture of Nandigram villages is being attempted is totally unlawful and unacceptable."
  When protests in Singur, spearheaded by Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata  Banerjee, gained momentum, the government failed to tackle it. The fallout was that the state government could not retain the Nano project, and it's vote share. 

   Mamata Banerjee
  Mamata Banerjee was born to Promileswar and Gayatri Banerjee on 5 January 1955, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal. She grew up from a lower middle-class family. She graduated with an honours degree in History from the Jogamaya Devi College , an undergraduate women's college in southern Kolkata Later she earned a master's degree in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta and a degree in education from the Shri Shikshayatan College Later, she earned a law degree from the Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College Kolkata.
   She started her political career with Congress(I) , and as a young woman in the 1970s, she quickly rose in the ranks of the local Congress group, and remained the General Secretary of Mahila Congress (I), West Bengal, from 1976 to 1980. In the 1984 general election , she became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever, beating veteran Communist politician Somnath Chatterjee , from the Jadavpur parliamentary Constituency. She retained the`Kolkata South seat in the 1996 , 1998 , 1999 , 2004 and 2009 general elections  In the Rao government formed in 1991, Mamata Banerjee was made the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development , Youth Affairs and Sports and Women and Child Development .
   In 1997, Mamata Banerjee came out of the Congress Party in West Bengal and established the All India Trinamool Congress  It quickly became the primary opposition to the long-standing Communist government
in the state. In 1999, she joined the BJP -led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and was allocated the Railways Ministry. In 2000, Mamata Banerjee presented her first Railway Budget. 
  In early 2001, after making allegations against the BJP, she walked out of the NDA cabinet and allied with the Congress Party for West Bengal 's 2001 elections, amidst speculation that the move could unseat the Communist government. She returned to the cabinet in January 2004, holding the Ministry of Coal and Mines portfolios until the 2004 Elections, in which she was the only Trinamool Congress member to win a Parliament seat from WB.
  In November 2006, Mamata Banerjee was forcibly stopped on her way to Singur for a rally against a proposed Tata Motors car project. In 2009, Mamata Banerjee became Railway Minister for the second time. After becoming railway minister for the second time, Mamata Banerjee declared many new initiatives in the Railway Budget 2009, which reflects Banerjee's clear inclination towards her home state (West Bengal) though eventually she took measures to show her willingness to work for the entire country.
   Singur case
   The earlier Left Front government had leased 997.11 acres of land in Singur to Tata Motors to set up a manufacturing unit for the Nano car. Land from about 13,000 landowners had been acquired for the plant but about 2,200 of them, with about 400 acres between them, refused to accept compensation. 
  Mamata Banerjee had promised to return the 400 acres to the unwilling farmers, and said that Tata Motors could build a factory on the remaining land. The Act, one of the first enacted after Ms Banerjee became chief minister, empowers the government to return 400 of the nearly 1000 acres leased to Tata Motors at Singur to farmers who had
unwillingly parted with their land. 
      
   However, the Tata Motors, which had launched the Nano as a 'people's car'  at Rs 100,000 to much fanfare, said it was not possible to build a factory and ancillaries on 600 acres. Tata Motors in October 2008 shifted the project to Sanand in Gujarat. It also filed a case seeking compensation for their investment of about Rs1,500 crore in Singur. A single bench of the court had upheld the validity of the Act on September 28, 2011. The Tatas appealed to a two-judge division bench. In a major win for Tata Motors, the Kolkata High Court on June 22, 2012  ruled that the Singular Land Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011 was constitutionally invalid.   

   Mamta Banerjee as CM
   Mamta Banerjee made history on Friday, the 20th May 2011 when she was sworn in as the first woman chief minister of West Bengal. The 56 -year old leader, who ended the the 34 years reign of the Left in the state recently took oath of office at an impressive ceremony with 35 minister from Trinamool and 2 from the Congress. 
  One of her first decisions was to return 400 acres of land to Singur farmers. "The cabinet has decided to return 400 acres to unwilling farmers in Singur," the chief minister said. She has also been credited to solving the longstanding "Gorkhaland Problem" by setting up the Gorkhaland Autonomous Council. She has started various reforms in education and health sectors. Some of the reforms in the education sectors include release of the monthly pay
of the teachers on the first of every month  and quicker pensions for retiring teachers. 
  Challenges ahead 
  However, the challenges Mamata would be facing while running the government are no less. First among them is to put an end to the bloodletting in the districts. Second is the financial morass that Bengal is steeped into. These two are a major hurdle to her development vision. And third, Mamata has to tackle the Maoist threat in Jangalmahal and also the adivasis and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in the Hills.  
  Mamata Banerjee's oil painting auctioned in New York for $3000
  Purple flowers on a bed of green leaves in acrylic and oil on canvas by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been auctioned in New York for $3000 dollars on October 25, 2012, her first painting to be sold abroad.
With a reserved price of $2500, five bids were made before the painting titled 'Flower Power' was sold at $3000 to Sundaram Tagore Gallery, a spokesperson of the US-based NGO Children's Hope India which auctioned the painting to raise funds for the welfare of underprivileged children in India, said.
  The auction was held at a gala event in New York City to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the NGO. Founded in 1992 by a group of Indian American women professionals, Children's Hope India sponsors health, education and vocational programmes for thousands of children in India. Out of about 200 paintings made so far by the Trinamool Congress supremo, this was the first time her work went abroad. She has held three exhibitions so far. Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien, who was also present during the auction, said the NGO had requested the chief minister to contribute a painting. "Since it was for a good cause she readily agreed. She painted it two months ago at her office," said the party leader.

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