The Congress’s Bengal veteran Pradip Bhattacharya opened a proverbial can of worms with his Saturday remarks that his party in the state was still doing “penance” for expelling Mamata Banerjee on December 21, 1997.
The expulsion prompted Mamata to form the Trinamool Congress on January 1, 1998.
Former state president Bhattacharya claimed he had warned then state president Somen Mitra against the move, but the latter was forced to comply with then national president Sitaram Kesri’s order.
At a Bowbazar event on Saturday evening, where a bust of the deceased Mitra was unveiled, Bhattacharya, 79, seemed to lament the loss.
“Why was the Congress party fragmented (in Bengal)? I vividly remember the day... Mamata Banerjee was expelled from the party…. I received a call from Somen. He said Sitaram Kesri called to say Mamata must be expelled. ‘You must do it, because we have done it,’ Kesri had said. I had told Somen, ‘Whatever you do, don’t do this’,” said Bhattacharya, whose relative softness towards Mamata is no secret.
Bhattacharya had secured his second term at the Rajya Sabha in 2017, with her publicly declared support, after the Congress’s Bengal ally, the CPM, had shown reluctance.
Mamata, whose breakaway Trinamool rose meteorically to snatch the principal Opposition space from the Congress, became the chief minister in 2011, felling the 34-year Left Front regime.
Although she won the 2011 Assembly election as the UPA II railway minister and a Congress ally in Bengal, Mamata abandoned the Grand Old Party.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Congress state president till September last year, has accused Mamata of trying to systematically destroy the Congress in Bengal thereafter, which was largely responsible for bringing the party closer to the Left.
Bhattacharya said that contrary to the widely held belief, Kesri was to blame more than Mitra for Mamata’s expulsion from the party.
Even Mitra, who died at the age of 79 in 2020, spent a five-year stint since 2009 in Mamata’s party to interrupt his nearly seven-decade career in the Congress.
“Such pressure was created on Somen. He was forced to do this. The Congress is doing penance for it even today,” he said.
“I don’t know when and how we will be able to emerge from this chasm,” added Bhattacharya at the event, with the current state president Subhankar Sarkar seated behind him on stage.
Sarkar, who was brought in last September to replace hardliner Chowdhury at the helm of the state unit, is deemed more moderate towards Mamata than the former Baharampur MP.
Chowdhury was identified as a principal reason for the INDIA bloc not working out in Bengal.
The Congress won just one Lok Sabha seat — Malda Dakshin — out of the 42 in Bengal. The Left, its ally, won none. An analysis of the post-poll data suggested that a united fight by the INDIA bloc in Bengal would have cost the BJP at least six of the 12 seats it won.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Congress and the Left failed to win a single seat in the 294-member House.
Asked if he agreed with Bhattacharya, Sarkar said he didn’t hear that part of the speech.
“Exactly what Pradipda said in that part of the address, I didn’t really hear.... For whatever reason, I was not able to hear this part of what he said,” said Sarkar.
Bhattacharya said on Sunday that he primarily meant to state that Mitra has always been blamed for throwing Mamata out of the party, but it wasn’t the case. Mitra was merely following orders from Kesri and others in the high command.
“Having said that, it would be delusional not to admit that our party has weakened steadily and drastically in Bengal since then…,” he added.
Chowdhury said Bhattacharya was within his rights to speak his mind based on his vast experience.
“He was a tall leader in 1997, we were minnows. I am not going to comment on his remarks. But we have been coping with Mamata’s torture to keep this party alive in Bengal, year after year,” he said.
“In 2011, Sonia Gandhi told us to forge an alliance with her, I never said no. The Congress gave every assistance to her then, from money to helicopters…. brought her to power. After that, all saw her real face. Let people figure out who is doing penance for what,” added Chowdhury.