CALCUTTA, 6 April 2004 — Nayana Bandopadhyay wears three hats: she is a Tollywood actress, an MLA and the wife of rebel Trinamul Congress MP Sudip Bandopadhyay.

At present, she is hogging the media limelight in politically surcharged West Bengal after lambasting Trinamul Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, in the run-up to next month’s parliamentary elections.

Being an actress, Nayana chose an unlikely platform — Bengali film magazine, Anandalok — to launch her no-holds-barred attack on Mamata. But leading Calcutta dailies, both English and Bengali, picked on it greedily.

According to Nayana, “Mamata is no Jayalalitha or Mayawati. She frittered away too many opportunities. She is very irresponsible and unreliable. The Trinamul Congress’ days are numbered because of her.”

The actress also branded Mamata a dictator and claimed that “the little English she knows is what I taught her.”

“Mamata is a very scheming woman. She resorts to gimmicks and stunts at the drop of a hat. She claims to know everything under the sun but knows nothing. I tried to teach her English because I loved her.”

Interestingly, it was Mamata who nurtured Sudip and Nayana for many years, ignoring warnings even from her mother and brothers that the ambitious couple would ultimately turn against her.

Nayana, a Trinamul Congress MLA from Bowbazar, also accuses Mamata of ringing up film producers to cancel her shooting dates so that she could accompany Mamata wherever she went.

Banerjee and the Bandopadhyays parted ways after Mamata refused to re-nominate Sudip from Kolkata (Northwest) parliamentary constituency which he won in 1998 and 1999.

Sudip paid the price for snuggling close to the Bharatiya Janata Party, particularly Lal Krishna Advani, Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley, when Mamata distanced herself from the BJP after she was denied the railway portfolio and repeatedly snubbed.

He refused to obey her orders to steer clear of the BJP.

And she hit back by fielding her new crony, Subroto Mukherjee, from Kolkata (Northwest) and shunting Sudip to far-away Raigunj.

Sudip whined and cried but Mamata did not budge. So he is contesting as an independent and is desperately wooing the Congress party to support him.

But Congress has made it clear that it will endorse his candidature only if he publicly denounces Vajpayee, Advani and the BJP — a precondition which is proving very embarrassing for Sudip.

Analysts say that Nayana launched the scathing attack on Mamata at Sudip’s behest.

Mamata has shrugged off Nayana’s charges, saying: “It is beneath my dignity to respond to her.”

Nayana claims that Mamata is so furious that she tried to kill her after the interview.

A Maruti carrying Nayana collided with an Ambassador the very day Anandalok hit the stands. She complained that the collision was engineered by Mamata to eliminate her. But the police quickly dismissed the charge.