Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, in keeping with all too familiar forecasts from sections in her party, apparently stepped back in a matter of 68 hours from her newfound toughness as the head of the state government to crack down on encroachments and illegal constructions.

The stringent chief minister — “Madam” to the administration — seen on live television in the 4pm meeting on Monday at the state secretariat took the backseat in a similar exercise at the same venue from 12pm on Thursday.

Instead, “Didi” — the mass leader avowedly against the use of force to take from the people anything they do not readily want to part with — stepped forward.

The Trinamool Congress chairperson pressed the pause button on the anti-encroachment exercise for a month and offered to accommodate the concerns of those displaced by the drive.

“Nobody has given us the right to take away people’s food (livelihood). We do not have the right to render anybody unemployed,” said Mamata at the second televised meeting.

She had convened the meeting after widespread criticism — and apprehensions of backlash within the ruling dispensation — over the visuals of bulldozers pitilessly tearing down structures from where hawkers and vendors made a living for themselves and their families.

“Turning people’s livelihoods to dust by bringing in bulldozers is not in our culture,” added the chief minister, who has been caustic in her criticism over the years of bulldozer-driven action in BJP-ruled states, such as by the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh. The Left had already started calling her out on the allegedly Adityanath-esque action.

Sources in Trinamool said while Monday’s orders were issued on the basis of the understanding that urban voters were turning away from Mamata, despite her stellar performance in the Lok Sabha elections in the state, Thursday’s balancing act was necessitated by the realisation that the action was risking antagonising sections that did largely stand by her even amid the poor show in 69 of the 125 civic areas of Bengal.

“The poorer sections of the urban, semi-urban, and peri-urban centres still voted for Trinamool in large numbers. The hawkers and vendors represent those sections. Each hawker or vendor affected by this impacts the voting pattern of five-seven, even 10-odd diligent voters of their family,” said a ruling party insider.

He has said if one goes micro to the extent of booth-level examination of the results in the 125 civic areas, it is clear that the slum-dwelling populations in civic wards backed Trinamool wholeheartedly.

“The urban anti-incumbency that she seeks to nullify before the Assembly elections of 2026 is mostly from electors who do not belong to the poorer sections, and how much the anti-encroachment drive or better civic amenities would yield by way of winning them back is highly debatable,” he said.

According to him, issues such as alleged corruption, relative lack of industrialisation, and sluggish generation of employment opportunities were among the foremost factors —besides communal polarisation since the rise of the BJP here —that were principal determinants for the apparent urban disillusionment with Mamata.

“Over the past couple of days, many of us shared with her our serious concerns over how the bulldozer-induced tears being shed by these sections of the masses might adversely impact our electoral fortunes, going forward,” he said.

A senior on the Assembly treasury benches pointed out that encroachment by hawkers or vendors in urban spaces has been a perennial problem for decades, having proliferated during the Left regime, and Mamata made a career of standing by such sections whenever stern measures were taken — such as during the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s contentious Operation Sunshine in 1996.

“Now, this sudden U-turn (the Monday decision) goes against her very image. It was also strengthening the hands of the Opposition, which was throwing its weight behind the affected people,” he said, referring to the support pledged by the Left and even the BJP on Wednesday.

“With her stand today, she is taking the wind out of the Opposition’s sails. Hopefully, not too much damage has been done already,” he added. “At the same time, she did not completely walk away from the project, and chose to enforce a time-out in order to be more discreet about this.”

Senior government officials said that the sudden pause on the eviction drive might make the encroachment problem more critical as more people could settle down in areas where the drive was yet to be carried out.

“In Calcutta, there is a record of hawkers as they had applied for identity cards in 2015. But there is no such record in other civic bodies. So, if new people start settling down encroaching government land within the next one month, the problem would get exacerbated,” said a senior official.

According to another official, the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) had carried out a survey of hawkers in its area in 2019, which stated that there were 1,706 hawkers in 2019.

“Based on the report, the NKDA had constructed three markets to relocate these 1,706 hawkers. As soon as the news spread that hawkers would be relocated, the figure had exceeded 4,000 within a few months,” said the official.

“We can construct some more markets, but until we evict all encroachers in one fell swoop, it is tough to get control of encroachment on government land,” he added.

According to sources in Nabanna, the picture could be similar in Calcutta, with 59,000 hawkers as of 2015.

“The figure must have crossed the 75,000 mark in these nine years. It would not be surprising if some new people settle down in the next one month in areas where eviction drives have not been carried out yet,” an official said.

However, sources in the party said Mamata’s public reproval of the administration — besides elected representatives — had spurred officials into excessive action, which was avoidable.

“She had ordered aninch or two. They went about like mindless, mercilessrobots, snatching feet,” saida Trinamool councillor inCalcutta.