Congress leader Kirti Azad and former JDU leader Pavan Varma joined the Trinamool Congress in the national capital on Tuesday in the presence of party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Another Congress leader, Ashok Tanwar, who quit the party in October 2019 and launched his own party, joined the TMC later in the evening.

"I'll work under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee and I'll start working on the field. The BJP's politics is divisive and we will fight it. Today, a personality like her is needed in the country who can show it the right direction," Azad said after joining.

Varma, a former adviser to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was expelled from the ruling JD(U) in 2020. He was an MP until July 2016. He was also the national general secretary and spokesperson of the party. "Looking at the current political circumstances and the potential in Mamata Banerjee, I have today joined TMC," said Varma.

Kirtivardhan Azad, a former BJP MP turned Bihar Congress leader, was a key member of the team led by Kapil Dev that won the cricket world cup in 1983. Son of the late Bihar chief minister Bhagwat Jha Azad, he had cut his teeth into politics with the BJP, unlike his father who was a diehard Congressman.

While his father was literally a son of the Bihar (undivided) soil, serving in public office both at the Centre and in Patna, Azad has been a Delhi boy. During his cricketing days, Azad represented Delhi in the Ranji Trophy, not Bihar.

His first foray into electoral politics was as an MLA from Delhi’s Gol Market seat, which had a sizeable Bengali-speaking population. His fallout with the BJP, while still an elected MP, too happened over allegations of corruption and irregularities in the Delhi Cricket Association then headed by the late Arun Jaitley, close to both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Azad contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on a Congress ticket unsuccessfully. And has since been heard or seen little of.

Since the Congress-RJD mahagathbandhan lost to the NDA in the last Assembly polls of 2020, the Opposition in Bihar has had very little space, as both the Congress and RJD have fallen out. The inclusion of former JNUSU president and CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar made matters worse for the Congress and the RJD despite Lalu Prasad Yadav’s proximity to the Gandhi family.

“Both (Azad and Kumar) are a liability for the Congress. Will either of them hit the streets for the Bihar Congress worker? No. Kumar is more comfortable addressing closed-door meetings and seminars. And Azad’s life has always been in the circle of power. With Trinamul he at least stands a chance of getting a Rajya Sabha seat,” said a Bihar Congress leader.

Azad, owing to his lineage from a Maithili Brahmin family in current Jharkhand, gives Mamata the added advantage of getting a face for her party in the neighbouring state.

“In the current expansion mode that the Trinamul is in, it is natural that Jharkhand and Bihar will be on her radar. Azad, like the all-rounder he was in cricket, can play in both the states. But it can’t be said with any certainty that he can win the cup,” said a Trinamul source.

On the other hand, the ship carrying Tanwar had sailed over two years ago from the Congress when he quit the party barely weeks before the crucial Assembly polls.

Tanwar, handpicked by Rahul Gandhi to lead the Congress after the 2014 Lok Sabha debacle, had run into the formidable Hoodas. That was one time when Sonia Gandhi appeared to have backed the right horse, as the father son duo of Bhupinder and Deepinder Singh Hooda delivered 30 seats and stopped the BJP from reaching the majority mark of 46 seats, till Dushyant Chautala flipped to the BJP and helped it retain power.

Tanwar’s proximity to the Gandhis was largely because of his wife Avantika, daughter of the slain Delhi Congress leader Lalit and Geetanjali Maken and grand-daughter of former president Shankar Dayal Sharma.

Avantika was barely six years old when her parents were killed by Khalistani militants on July 31, 1985, nine months after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The Gandhis—Rajiv and Sonia—had mourned the Makens for weeks. While Rajiv took on the responsibility of running the Prime Minister’s Office, Sonia took the orphaned Avantika under her care, and she soon turned into her Sonia aunty. That bond stretched for over three decades till politics tore it apart.

Avantika had tied the knot with Tanwar, a Dalit leader with a PhD from JNU, with Sonia Gandhi’s blessings, after her first marriage ended in a divorce. For Rahul Gandhi, who as then Congress president was trying to revitalise the party, Tanwar ticked all the right boxes. He had risen through the ranks heading the NSUI and the Indian Youth Congress, that gives him common ground with the Bengal chief minister.

Since his ouster, Tanwar has largely been in political wilderness till February this year when he announced his outfit, Apna Bharat Morcha, in Delhi. The event was attended by another former Congress leader from the far-flung state of Tripura, Kirit Pradyot Deb Burman. It is not a coincidence that Mamata is trying hard to gain a foothold in Tripura and there have been talks with the member of the erstwhile rulers of the kingdom of Tripura.