‘Politics is not business’: Bengal MLA Kalita Maji says becoming MoS won’t change her

West Bengal MLA from Ausgram Kalita Maji who rose from the grassroots of Bardhaman’s Ausgram village to become the Minister of State (Housing department) in the Bharatiya Janata Party state cabinet believes that politics is not for fulfilling one’s individual needs and only people hold the key to her power.

In a freewheeling conversation with The Statesman, Maji said, “I do not think of politics as a career opportunity. For me, politics is about the people. It is the people who can bring someone down, it is the people who can make someone rise to power.”

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Pointing at her own journey as an example, she credited people from her constituency to vote her to power. “I did not reach here through my own influence or my connections. It is the people who wanted me here. I want to remain one of them,” she explained.

Revealing that she had never asked anyone to give her ticket to contest the election, Maji even disclosed that she is not even familiar with many of the leaders holding key positions in her party. “Yet I reached this place because people wanted it,” she underlined, adding, “There is nothing greater than people.”

Strongly refuting the idea that a strong political career can lead to economic wealth, she empahsised, “politics is not business.”

In an comment that may be seen by political pundits as an indirect jibe at Trinamool Congress’ national general secreatary Abhishek Banerjee, Maji said, “Business has its place, and politics has its place.”

The Minister of State in charge of Housing stressed that she cannot abandon the party workers who have worked hard to help him come to power, and focus on building his personal wealth.

“So many grassroots workers and ordinary people worked hard and blessed me to help me reach this position. How can I abandon them and focus on building my personal wealth while they suffer? I want to remain the same ordinary person I have always been,” Maji told The Statesman.

Speaking about her elevation as the Minister of State in the newly formed state government, Maji credited her party saying, “No other political party could have given me this kind of recognition; only the Bharatiya Janata Party could.”

Mentioning that she had never anticipated that she would come to this position, Maji said, “I neither expected it nor even dreamt that I would one day become a minister.”