Trinamul leader Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday visited his aunt and chief minister Mamata Banerjee at her Kalighat residence for nearly two hours, with multiple Trinamul functionaries saying that the duo discussed candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled for February 27 and key aspects of the Lok Sabha campaign.
The meeting came amid purported tension between the two and their close aides. However, multiple sources from either side insisted there was never any breakdown of communication between the two and they were in fairly constant touch over texts even when they weren’t frequently meeting each other in person.
“Three elements could have featured in the talks. First, Rajya Sabha candidates. Second, some Lok Sabha candidates (were discussed) and the fact that the Trinamul campaign has been in somewhat of a limbo and needs to be launched with a bang without further ado. Third, that bang, possibly by way of a mega rally of Brigade proportions,” said an insider.
“Both had been talking about the broad contours of these things, textually, for days,” he added.
The five Rajya Sabha vacancies are that of Trinamul’s Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Ranjan Biswas, Md Nadimul Haque, and Santanu Sen, besides the Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who won with Mamata’s backing. Now, Trinamul is likely to get four based on their strength in the Bengal Assembly. The BJP is expected to get one.
“The nomination process begins on Friday for the February 27 Rajya Sabha polls. The announcement of the names would be made by her (Mamata) in a day or two. Two of the outgoing four are almost certainly going to be sent again. The other two are likely to be replaced,” said a Trinamul MP.
The BJP’s leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, in Delhi on Monday to meet Union home minister Amit Shah and other seniors, got one name approved from a list of six for the BJP's Rajya Sabha candidate from Bengal.
On Tuesday, Abhishek went straight to Mamata's residence from the airport on his arrival from Delhi. At their meeting, their party’s campaign for the general election was apparently discussed at length.
“In a conciliatory gesture, the aunt did not want to unilaterally announce the names before discussing with him face to face. This meeting further underscored his position as Trinamul’s Number Two,” said a source.
“His absence from the party’s Red Road dharna dais triggered a lot of conjecture from all quarters. He will probably show up now,” he added.
A Trinamul insider, a self-proclaimed fence-sitter between the old and the new camps of the party, said there has been an ever-increasing disquiet over the recent distance between the two most important faces of the party.
“This has deferred (Trinamul's) plans to dive headlong into the general election, which is neither good for old nor new camps,” he said. “Hopefully we will be told of the plans for the mega (poll campaign) launch this week."