Sixteen years after contesting the Bengal Assembly polls with the BJP, Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee, who was re-elected chairperson of the party on Wednesday, described her former alliance partner as the “main enemy.”

“Trinamul rose through a long political struggle. Trinamul is synonymous with struggle, movement. We believe in action, not words. We follow Swami Vivekananda. After every defeat, rise and you will win one day. You have defeated the CPM you can defeat the BJP too. BJP is running on money power, they are our main enemy,” Mamata told a gathering at Netaji Indoor Stadium.

In a speech that lasted close to an hour, Mamata’s message to the party was not to indulge in factionalism and target all 42 seats in Bengal in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“We have two years (before the next Lok Sabha polls) to set our house in order. Our target is to win all 42 Lok Sabha seats,” Mamata said. “If we have to defeat Modi, then charity must begin from home.”

Three years ago, the invincibility of the Trinamul in elections at all levels suffered a rude jolt with the BJP winning 17 Lok Sabha seats, including those in parts of Bengal where Trinamul had established its supremacy.

Though the BJP in Bengal could not live up to its own expectations and came nowhere near even to pose a threat to the Trinamul in Mamata’s third term, it is Mamata’s, and the state's main Opposition party with around 70 MLAs. Moreover, she herself had to return to the Assembly after a by-election, having lost in the April elections from Nandigram.

Trinamul's national ambitions

Since the Assembly poll victory, the Bengal chief minister’s national aspirations have taken fresh wings.

The Trinamul contested civic polls in Agartala, engineered defections in the Congress legislature party in Meghalaya, set up party units in Haryana and poll-bound Goa and got leaders from both the Congress and the BJP to take the party flag.

“We are supporting the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, so we will not contest the polls there. On February 8, I have a meeting there. For the last three-four months, we have been trying in Goa, have set up our state unit. In Tripura, our vote share has increased to 20 per cent in four months,” Mamata said.

“People of this country want Trinamul. You must set up a platform. Jahar Sircar (retired IAS-turned-Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP) is working with IAS and IPS officers. I had a meeting with artistes, writers in Mumbai. Gradually, everything will be fine,” she said.

Challenges ahead

The Trinamul boat in the national stream of politics is yet to sail as smoothly as Mamata would have liked it to.

In Goa, her prized catch from the Congress, like former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro (now a Rajya Sabha member from Bengal), has decided against contesting the polls. Several other leaders who had switched to the Trinamul are now on their way out. The Congress has rejected a Trinamul demand to contest the polls by forming an alliance. Moreover, in Goa the Trinamul is in alliance with a party which supports the Sanatan Sanstha, an organisation whose members are accused of being involved in the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.

In Tripura, Trinamul is third in terms of vote share with the BJP at 59.01 per cent and the Left at 19.65 per cent. Trinamul’s vote share is 16.59 per cent. In the Agartala Municipal Corporation, Trinamul bagged 20.1 per cent votes to finish second in 27 wards, three more than the Left.

Mamata also claimed that she would not take leaders coming from other parties, after having engineered defections in political opponents of all shades in the state. “There is only one Trinamul. There are no factions,” she said.