Mamata Banerjee formally pulled the plug on the INDIA effort in Bengal on Sunday, claiming all 42 Lok Sabha contests for the Trinamul at a massive Brigade rally.

“You will see something new today: I shall walk with our party’s 42 candidates on this ramp,” the chief minister said at the beginning of her speech.

A pair of perpendicular ramps projecting from the main dais in the shape of a horizontal cross, which allowed Mamata to get closer to the crowd, was the talking point other than the first-of-its-kind announcement of party nominees at a rally.

Mamata, a key player in INDIA’s formation, had begun losing interest because of the delay in reaching a seats deal. She had over the past couple of months said repeatedly that Trinamul would go it alone, while blaming the Congress for the breakdown of the alliance in Bengal.

“We will fight solo in all 42 seats. If you want to make Bengal self-reliant, elect us,” she told the crowd.

However, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: “Our doors are always open and an alliance can happen anytime….”

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said his party had repeatedly declared its desire to have a respectable seat-sharing agreement with Trinamul in Bengal. “The... Congress has always maintained that such an agreement has to be finalised through negotiations and not by unilateral announcements,” he said in a post on X. “The... Congress has always wanted the INDIA group to fight the BJP together.”

Although some murmurs of discontent over the nominations could be heard within Trinamul ranks, the leadership stressed that the list — which includes two India cricketers, at least three Tollywood actresses, a scholar of Santhali literature and
an associate professor of psychiatry — represented Bengal’s diversity.

A party source spoke of another kind of diversity — the inclusion of loyalists of both Mamata and her heir apparent, Abhishek Banerjee.

‘Outsider’ rerun

The three-and-a-half-hour show — peppered with singing and dancing — featured a video flagging the BJP’s follies and signalled that Trinamul planned to tar the BJP with the same “outsider” tag that had worked so well in 2021.

“Jonogoner gorjon, bohiragatoder bisharjan (The people’s roar is the death knell for outsiders),” Mamata said.

Mahua Moitra and Saayoni Ghosh at Brigade Parade ground political rally on Sunday afternoon. (10.03.2024) The Telegraph picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Multiple Trinamul sources said the party’s poll strategists had decided that portraying the BJP as “outsiders” and accusing the central government of depriving Bengal was the best way to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi from winning over the state’s voters.

Both Mamata and Abhishek said that Bengal’s people could hope for nothing from a party of “outsiders” that had enlisted some anti-Bengal people from the state.

“You gave them 18 seats (in 2019) and then a lot of seats in the Assembly polls (in 2021)…. What have they done (for you)?” Mamata said.

“There are (BJP) people here who regularly go to Delhi and tell their leaders not to release funds for Bengal. They have stopped giving us our legitimate dues, but they are taking away all the money from the state.”

Abhishek echoed her and offered a rebuttal to Modi’s claim about releasing Rs 43,000 crore on rural housing schemes in the last two years. He spoke for 24 minutes before engaging in an impromptu Q&A session with the crowd.

“Do you want those who don’t give money to Bengal, are against Bengal?” he kept asking, egging the audience on to respond with a resounding “no”.

Twin challenges

Mamata said the chances of a fair poll process had diminished with the BJP trying to influence the Election Commission’s functioning.

“My first point is, an election commissioner (Arun Goel) resigned yesterday. I saw in the newspapers that he could not agree with the plot of inflicting atrocities and conducting the elections with the use of force to conquer Bengal,” she said, speculating about the reasons for the resignation. “The central government has been plotting to loot (votes) in Bengal.”

She added: “I salute him (Goel) from this meeting.”

Mamata said the other challenge was the misuse of central agencies like the CBI, ED and the income-tax department. “They are trying to loot the elections using the agencies. This is something revealed by the election commissioner,” she claimed.

Road ahead

The Mamata-Abhishek tango at the Brigade seems to have cleared the confusion among party ranks, dismayed for the past few months by reports of differences between aunt and nephew that had slowed poll preparations.

However, party sources said that completing the pending work before the elections would be tough. “A big-bang Brigade rally had been scheduled around December-January, but it got delayed. A lot of ground remains to be covered and we haven’t much time,” a source said.

Abhishek is scheduled to hold five big rallies between March 14 and 22, beginning with Jalpaiguri. Smaller meetings with various communities to address identity-based concerns are lined up, too. A meeting with the SC, ST and OBC communities is slated at the Netaji Indoor Stadium for Tuesday.

A source said a roster of 85-odd campaign meetings had been drawn up for Mamata, and she was likely to start crisscrossing the state from next week. “The venues will be selected after receiving feedback from the ground during Abhishek’s Nabo Jowar (New Tide) Yatra. The objective conditions in each seat too will be considered,” a source said.

A source said the battle was likely to be more intense compared with 2021, but Trinamul would hold the edge since it would not be a bipolar fight.

“It will be a three-way contest with the Congress and the Left set to tie up. The division in anti-Trinamul votes will surely favour us,” he said.