Some torn posters and damaged banners of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar town on Monday and the subsequent reaction of state Congress leaders the next day indicated serious confusion within the party's rank and file in the state over how far to defy the high command's insistence on a poll alliance with the Trinamul.

Local leaders in Cooch Behar and those in Calcutta spoke in different voices on who to blame for the vandalism.

Bengal Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy blamed the Trinamul Congress. “This is how Trinamul is trying to stop the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Bengal. A violent party like Trinamul which is in cohorts with the BJP will not succeed,” he said in a statement, making it clear the state unit of the party was not willing to concede any ground to the ruling Trinamul in Bengal.

But the Cooch Behar district Congress president Robin Roy did not rule out the possibility of the local BJP’s hand behind the incident.

Rahul Gandhi, who was some 318 km away in Guwahati on Tuesday, was possibly unaware of a students’ wing leader in the north Bengal district lodging a police complaint or that other functionaries were openly blaming the ruling Trinamul over the vandalism.

Hours before the vandalism in Calcutta on Monday, Bengal chief minister and Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee had complained of not getting the respect she deserved in the multi-party alliance that has been cobbled together in last July to fight the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Wayanad MP’s unity march from Manipur to Mumbai will enter Bengal from Boxirhat in Cooch Behar from Assam on January 25.

The yatra has faced administrative obstacles in BJP-ruled states in the north-east, especially Manipur and Assam, where a belligerent chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma ordered the state DGP to lodge an FIR against him for provoking the crowd after after supporters broke barricades erected to prevent them from moving ahead.

North Bengal’s Cooch Behar could have been expected to offer friendlier ground to Rahul, given that both the parties are important constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. But the complaint followed by the accusations speak otherwise.

After Bengal, Rahul is expected to proceed towards Bihar’s Kishangunj by January 29. His yatra will take a two-day break on January 26 and 27. After the yatra is through Bihar Rahul will enter Murshidabad on February 1. On the same day, Mamata will leave for North Bengal.

“We have good ties with Mamata and her party, talks for seat-sharing are on,” Rahul said during an interaction with mediapersons in Assam on Tuesday. “Sometimes our leaders say something, sometimes their leaders say things. None of it will have any impact on the alliance," he added, indicating he was still optimistic of a seat sharing deal.

In Tuesday's meeting with Birbhum leaders, Mamata reportedly expressed her anger with the Congress.

"Didi said we are a part of INDIA and offered two seats. Sometimes they ask for eight to 12 seats. Sometimes even 14. This is absurd. We have to retain both the seats in Birbhum," said a Trinamul functionary.

On the ground, however, there has been little progress to show that the Congress and Trinamul are inching closer to an electoral understanding in Bengal.

Though Mamata has told various district units of the Trinamul to go it alone, especially the one in Murshidabad, the last proverbial bastion of the Congress in Bengal, she did betray her impatience with the Congress high command following her harmony rally on Monday.

“I suggested the name INDIA, but when I attend its meetings I see the CPM trying to call the shots. I am not given the respect I deserve. I will not take orders from those against whom I fought all my life,” Mamata had said on Monday at Calcutta’s Park Circus maidan.

While the Congress and the Trinamul have fought poll battles together in the past, Rahul and Mamata have never shared the dais. Not even in 2011 when the Trinamul and the Congress defeated the Left Front contesting together with Mamata leading from the front. Five years later, Rahul did share the dais with Mamata’s then bete noire and former Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the same Park Circus grounds when the Left and the Congress contested the 2016 Assembly polls together, unsuccessfully.

The electoral returns for both the Congress and the CPM have dwindled in subsequent elections.

Within Trinamul circles Mamata’s dislike for the Wayanad MP is well-known, though she still maintains close ties with Sonia Gandhi. Mamata’s digs at the Congress have usually been aimed at the younger Gandhi and not his mother.

“She is saying these things as excuses to make the contest in Bengal a bipolar one between the BJP and the Trinamul, like she did in 2019 and 2021. The CPM has been attending INDIA meetings from Day One. Why didn’t she walk out then?” asked Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, state Congress president and Berhampore MP.

To those close to him, Chowdhury has made it clear that he would contest the polls as an Independent from Berhampore if he has to but will not go for any understanding with Mamata's Trinamul.

All the three political parties in Bengal, the Trinamul, the Congress and the CPM are partners in INDIA against the BJP. Neither the Congress nor the CPM has any representative in the state Assembly, while in Lok Sabha the Congress won two seats in 2019.

While the Bengal leaders have made it clear that they don’t want any alliance with the Trinamul, the Congress high command expects an improved tally by joining forces with the Trinamul.

“We have been trying to convince the high command that any alliance with Trinamul will go against our interests. We will lose whatever little votes we still have to the BJP. But the high command feels there is a better chance of winning holding the hands of the Trinamul,” said a Congress leader.

Trinamul is ready to leave the two existing seats for the Congress out of the 42. Trinamul insiders said Mamata could agree to four seats though chances are dim.

The Bengal Congress on the other hand is ready for an alliance with either the Left or go it alone. However, in the case of any alliance with the Left how many seats they would ask for is not clear yet. The Congress is keen on seats in south Bengal as well and not just Murshidabad, Maldah and North Dinajpur.

“We are not waiting for any one. Our stand is very clear. Whoever is against the BJP and the Trinamul in Bengal can join us. Now it is for them to decide,” said Mohammad Salim, CPM state secretary.