Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday iterated her pledge to take the BJP by the horns in the general election on her own in Bengal, indicating that the possibility of a rapprochement between the Trinamul Congress and the Congress over seat sharing remains bleak.
“How many do you want then? All 42? Lose all 42? Should the BJP win them all, and then come to Bengal and unleash a reign of terror, of loot and murder? I am not going to let that happen. I have the ability and the courage to fight the BJP alone,” she said while delivering her address at Malda, and later in Behrampore, traditionally regarded as Congress bastions.
Though Mamata has been making similar claims for the past two weeks and accusing the Congress of breaking up the INDIA combine in the state, the comments on Wednesday assumed significance as Rahul Gandhi has not uttered a word on the issue.
Rahul was in Malda barely a few hours after Mamata left and will be in Murshidabad on Thursday.
The fact that the Congress establishment, at least the central unit, is still keen on an electoral truck with Trinamul was evident as Rahul’s silence was complemented by senior leader Jairam Ramesh, who repeated that INDIA’s main objective was to defeat the BJP and lavished praise on Mamata yet again.
At Malda, Rahul didn’t name Mamata once but his address bore hints that he was still banking on her as he spoke about the preeminent role of Bengal in the
ideological battle against the RSS.
Rahul went on to talk about the many kinds of injustice in the saffron regime and how his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was for socio-economic justice sans discrimination.
The battle against the RSS ideology and the need for socio-economic justice are the two main pillars of Mamata’s politics.
“The people of Bengal are known to be ideologically inclined. It’s your responsibility to stand against and resist the (RSS) ideology of hatred,” said Rahul, who referred to the people of Bengal as the “guiding light” for the entire country before stressing the need for “intellectual leadership” from the state that had produced the maximum number of Nobel laureates in the country.
Congress communications chief Ramesh, who has been issuing statements over the past few days lauding Mamata and brimming with optimism about evening out all alliance hurdles with her, said nothing was set in stone yet.
“In any alliance, there ought to be consensus, not unanimity. Unilateral decisions should not be taken. There are three parties (in Bengal) from INDIA… even now we are of the consideration that INDIA will fight together in Bengal as well,” he said.
“We cannot even begin to imagine INDIA without her in it. She is a major leader who inspires us,” added Ramesh.
The placatory gesture from the Congress, however, did not have the desired effect on Mamata till Wednesday evening. The Bengal chief minister, who had been enthusiastic about a united fight against the BJP through the INDIA platform, has repeatedly expressed her displeasure at the inordinate delay in sealing the seat-sharing deal and the manner in which the state unit of the Congress, under the influence of the CPM, has gone after her.
“We had a good understanding with the Congress… if somebody played foul, it was the CPM. The CPM is today the biggest agent of the BJP,” Mamata said at Behrampore not long after making a similar statement at Malda where she obliquely referred to the Congress and, apparently, Rahul as “cuckoos” that become active every election season.
This was not the first time that Mamata had held the CPM responsible for getting in the way of her alliance parleys with the Congress. Over the past few days, she has often underscored the negative approach towards her in INDIA encouraged by the CPM.
“The CPM is their (the Congress’s) leader... have they forgotten the tortures of the (Left regime)?” she asked.
“I will never forgive the CPM, nor will I forgive those who support the CPM... because in doing so they actually end up aiding the BJP,” Mamata added.
While she has not shown any sign of willingness to oblige repeated requests from the Congress to participate in Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, currently passing through Bengal, even if it’s for “10-15 minutes”, the CPM, led by its state secretary Md Salim, has agreed to join the event.
The Congress finds itself in a spot of bother with regard to INDIA and Bengal. In the bloc, they are bedfellows with Trinamul and the CPM. In the state, they have been at daggers drawn with Trinamul, and in an on-again, off-again relationship with the consistently friendly CPM.
A day after the Congress’s state unit chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said that she would perhaps not have been where she is today without the blessings of Rahul’s parents, the Trinamul chief responded to the claim.
“We have family ties with them (the Gandhis). There are no political ties. I used to be in the Congress. I was thrown out. I formed Trinamul,” she said, referring to her days as a Congress leader till the formation of her breakaway party in 1998 and the affection and support she received during her stint in the Grand Old Party and thereafter from Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.
Even last week, Rahul had spoken well of his relationship with Mamata. His mother and sister, Priyanka Gandhi, had reached out to her with get-well-soon messages when she had sustained a head injury in a road incident.
Not only Trinamul but also sources in the Congress high command think that the militant resistance to alliance negotiations from Chowdhury — who has been relentlessly backed on this by AICC general secretary and CWC member Deepa Dasmunshi — is the foremost roadblock to the Bengal settlement.
“I had thought everybody would work together for the greater good. I made the offer first. I said you have zero MLAs (in Bengal), but I could give two Lok Sabha seats in Malda. They said, ‘it won’t do’,” said the chief minister, referring to her December 19 offer to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul of the two seats their party had won in Bengal in 2019 — Malda South and Behrampore. As a reciprocal gesture, she had asked the Congress to vacate seats for her party in Meghalaya and Assam.
The Congress’s Bengal unit believes it should be looking to contest in at least nine of the 42 seats, in any alliance. Of them, besides Behrampore and Malda South, the party fancies its chances in Murshidabad, Jangipur, Malda North, Raiganj, Darjeeling, Purulia and Basirhat.
Sources in Trinamul said Mamata was willing to consider vacating up to four seats for the Congress had the party mended its ways and asked nicely.