West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been named among 100 most influential people globally by Time magazine in its 2012 list, today said it is a recognition for Ma, Mati, Manush (Mother, Homeland and its People).
“I am happy.I dedicate this honour to world peace and to ‘Ma, Mati, Manush (mother, land and people) of Bengal,” Banerjee told reporters here. “Whatever I have received in life, all have been given by the people. The credit goes to the people of Bengal.
Earlier Time magazine has listed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in its list for 2012, sharing space with the likes of US President Barack Obama and billionaire investor Warren Buffet.
“Mamata Banerjee rose to the fore last year when she and a movement she built from the grassroots wrested control of her home state of West Bengal, ending three and a half decades of sclerotic communist rule.
“Banerjee, 57, spent years struggling on the margins, her Trinamool Congress Party a feisty rabble compared with the leviathan of West Bengal’s communists,” said the magazine about the leader.
Describing her achievements, the magazine goes on say: “On the streets, she out-Marxed the Marxists. And as chief minister of her home state, she has emerged as a populist woman of action – strident and divisive but poised to play an even greater role in the world’s largest democracy.”
“I have dedicated my life to the cause of the common people. I am a small person, but people love me and have brought me to this position,” she said.
Noting that she came from a humble family background, she said she believed in simple living and in serving the people. The chief minister, who has been criticised on a number of issues, also said that there were some people who ‘always conspired’.
“But their number is not even 0.1 per cent. Some criticise without understanding. What should I say about them?”
The other Indian to feature in the list is Anjali Gopalan – the founder and executive director of The Naz Foundation (India) Trust, an NGO dedicated to the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India.
i meet y madam as soon as possible
im m to mam