People's Democracy

 Trinamul Congress Split Rings In

An Air Of Uncertainty In Bengal Opposition

THE air has been thick for some months now with allegations and acrimonious counter-allegations flying fast between the two factions of the Trinamul Congress.  One is led by Mamata Banerjee, the other, is led by long-time Congress activist, Subrata Mukherjee.  Subrata Mukherjee formally split the Trinamul Congress when he chose to float a ‘Paschimbanga Unnayan Mancha.’ 

In between, Mamata has called Subrata a ‘poisoner’; Subrata has retaliated by calling Mamata a ‘poisonous person.’  Neither has chosen to elaborate on the exchange, preferring instead to heap fresh abuses on each other using every public occasion they could find convenient.  Both have accused the other as the ‘agent of the CPI(M).”  Trinamul Congress leaders have lamented in private and public that the worst hour has come for the group.  

Attending the sumptuous dinner that heralded the split at Mukherjee’s residence on April 26 was a fair number of Trinamul Congress councillors and MLA’s plus sundry disgruntled elements in the Mamata Banerjee group.  Mukherjee has called upon the Trinamul Congress supporters to rally behind his Mancha. A Kolkata college teacher who heads one of the few remaining block-level Trinamul Congress committees, declares bitterly how Mamata Banerjee has been a success in ‘finishing off the party.’  His views have many takers in the Trinamul Congress now, and the number of those who stand opposed to Banerjee is on the rise.  

The split, coming as it did following a vociferous battle of words and deeds, had kept the Trinamul Congress virtually out of action of the kind it prefers, and this has been going on since the debacle of that outfit in the Lok Sabha election.  In that election, the Trinamul Congress could win but one seat and that, too, with a reduced margin.

The ostensible reason why the Trinamul Congress split has to do with the great exodus from the outfit into the folds of the Pradesh Congress in the recent past.  Mukherjee who is a survivor in the rough-tumble of right-wing politics, merely wanted to float along the tide by machinating a split as a first step to aligning himself and his followers with the Pradesh Congress where he sees his future just as he had ‘seen’ his future in the Trinamul Congress back in 1997-98 when he had been instrumental along with Mamata Banerjee in splitting the Pradesh Congress.

That the Pradesh Congress is filled with worries what with the prospect of Mukherjee marching off to Delhi, meeting the central Congress leadership, and wiggling his way back into the party looming large for everyone to see, is quite clear.  The Pradesh Congress which is itself already in difficulties over the split among its ranks in Murshidabad and elsewhere over the bitter fallout between the old guard led by Atish Sinha and the youngsters under the tutelage of Adhir Chaudhuri, is wary of Mukherjee and his philandering style of politics. And at least one Pradesh Congress leader has gone on record to say that Mukherjee must not be admitted back into the Congress, at least not till the civic elections are over.  An air of uncertainty hangs over the rightist camp in Bengal now with the low profile Bengal BJP choosing to hold a tenuous silence over the entire affair of the split and its possible aftermath. (BP)