Can Mamata Banerjee expand her party beyond WB?

 Any party can be expanded or any party can be made a national party. It only depends on what needs to be added or mixed up to make a state-specific party or a regional party a national party. However, there is a fundamental flaw in the approach. Let me explain it.

Chicken is the basic ingredient for preparing Chicken Butter Masala and Chilli Chicken. You will add up other ingredients or spices depending on what you want to cook. But once you have prepared Chicken butter Masala, you can not convert it to Chilli chicken even if you know how to prepare it. For that, you have to buy fresh chicken.

This is the problem with Mamata. She formed TMC in 1998, last 26 years she has treated it as a state-specific party for Bengal, now she can not convert it to a national party overnight. She can not serve a Bengali dish to all Indian customers. She can not sell Bengali fish curry as Goan fish curry, nor can sell chicken butter masala as chili chicken. She has to buy fresh fish and fresh chicken and cook the dish from the beginning. Secondly, a cook who has specialized in cooking only Bengali dishes for the last 37 years, may find it too difficult to turn up to be a cook for North Indian dishes. You wouldn’t go to a Bengali restaurant to have North Indian dishes or Chinese dishes, particularly when you know that they don’t have a specialized cook for North Indian dishes

Suppose I am not happy with the food of a particular north Indian restaurant, I will go and look for another restaurant that is known for authentic North Indian dishes. I will not visit a Chinese or South Indian restaurant.

This is the problem with Mamata and TMC. Overnight she has just changed the signboard of TMC from a state party to a national party but everything else remains the same. Even If you are not happy with your cardiologist will you go to a gynecologist for your cardiac ailment? She would not be able to treat you. And even if she treats you, it's almost sure that you will die. Rather it's better that you continue with your old cardiologist who is not so good. But at least he knows the subject.

Mamata should have decided at the beginning itself whether she wanted TMC to be a state party or a national party. A doctor practicing 24 years as a gynecologist can not turn up to be a cardiac surgeon overnight. And how many patients would go to her for cardiac surgery? Even if Mamata shouted at the top of her voice, she wouldn’t turn up to be a national leader. Not that she was not capable of becoming a national leader, but she never took that call. It's a matter of specialization, where calls have to be taken at the right time. Whether you want to become a DM neuro or DM cardiology decision has to be taken in advance.