She later fell out with Congress leaders, and in 1998, founded her own political party. She was elected to India's parliament as a member of that party in 1984, when she was 29. 'She would take her college books and start reading inside the prison cell itself.'Īt first, Banerjee joined the Congress party and became one of its student leaders. 'The police would come and round up and throw them in prison - lock them up for half a day or so,' Paul says. There's a famous photo from that era of Banerjee dancing atop the hood of a rival politician's car. She's confident - sometimes overconfident.' 'Her speeches were fiery! She was quite aggressive even at that time,' Paul explains. Graffiti in Kolkata depicts West Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the 10-armed Hindu goddess Durga, ahead of a Hindu festival called Durga Puja celebrating the goddess. ('Didi,' Banerjee's nickname, means elder sister in several Indian languages.) 'She came from a family with very little means, an extremely humble upbringing, and with the loss of her father, the entire responsibility of a household pretty much fell on her,' says Shutapa Paul, author of a biography titled Didi: The Untold Mamata Banerjee.

Gandhi's father was India's first post-colonial prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.īanerjee's father died when she was a teenager. Banerjee rose from humble origins and early on made her mark in India's patriarchal politicsīanerjee has none of the family connections that helped India's best-known female politician - the first and only woman to serve as prime minister, Indira Gandhi - rise to the top of patriarchal politics in the 1970s. And with the next general election likely more than two years away, analysts say Banerjee - a regional leader from a non-Hindi speaking state, and a woman without the backing of a political dynasty - has her work cut out for her. Asia Indian Woman Sued For Defamation Over #MeToo Complaint Against Her Boss Is Acquittedīut Modi is India's most popular leader in decades.

Thorn inistar