The Congress on Monday seemed to adopt a carrot-and-stick policy with its Bengal unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who has annoyed the high command by relentlessly targeting Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

First, the party hinted at disciplinary action against those who had defaced posters of party president Mallikarjun Kharge for upbraiding the Berhampore MP over his comments against the Trinamool chief.

Later, Kharge — who had ticked off Adhir on Saturday in an apparent show of
coalition dharma — indulgently referred to him as a “combative soldier”.

A statement from Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal took a grim view of Kharge’s posters being defaced outside the Congress office in Calcutta and the party president being slammed as “Trinamool Congress ka dalal (agent)”.

“We are taking a very serious note of such grave anti-party activities. The Indian National Congress shall not tolerate such public display of defiance and indiscipline,” the statement said.

The Congress high command has asked the general secretary in charge of Bengal to immediately submit a factual report on “these acts of gross indiscipline”.

Without naming anyone, Venugopal said the party central leadership had learnt that a “few office-bearers and workers” of the Congress had made certain “uncharitable remarks” against the party president in the media as well as social media.

“Acts of vandalising the hoarding outside WBPCC office have also been carried out by certain miscreants,” the statement said.

Quoting sources, PTI said that Adhir, who is in his hometown Behrampore, had expressed displeasure at the vandalism and asked party workers to lodge a police complaint. A complaint has been registered and the defaced posters have been removed.

On Saturday, Kharge had publicly reprimanded Adhir for speaking out of turn about Mamata and her relationship with the INDIA bloc, maintaining the Bengal unit chief does not have a say in the matter.

Kharge was responding to a question on Adhir’s claim that the Bengal chief minister could not be trusted and could go with the BJP.

“He is not the one who will decide. The decision-makers are us, the Congress party, the high command. So, the decision we take will be the right one,” Kharge had said.

Still, Adhir refused to back down, telling reporters in Calcutta that he could not cosy up to someone who was trying to decimate the Congress in Bengal.

“I cannot stop this fight as a party foot soldier. It is an ideological battle, not a personal fight. In Bengal, we are trying to save the party. The BJP and the TMC are hand in glove in Bengal. They want to make the election bipolar in the state,” he said.

But Kharge also sounded reconciliatory and indulgent in an interview with PTI, describing Adhir as a “ladaku sipahi” (combative soldier), perhaps mindful of his stature as the only Congress leader in Bengal with grassroots support and his proximity to the Nehru-Gandhi family.