Poll-bound Uttar Pradesh saw the induction of 17.50 lakh new members into the Congress within three days of the launch of the membership drive.

Around 1,009 km away in Calcutta where 120 years ago a young lawyer from South Africa had first appeared on the Congress platform, none of the state leaders are aware how many new members have been inducted since the membership drive was launched by Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on November 1.

“I am not sure. Probably none. Ask someone else,” said a Congress leader from central Calcutta.

It is clear state Congress leaders do not see eye-to-eye. Yes, they are all in the party, still. But none seem to be able to work with each other. Days before the Congress membership drive in Bengal, a senior leader said during a private conversation, "Had I been the Bengal Congress president, I would have sat outside Sealdah station (to recruit passengers coming to Calcutta)." However, he would not reply what was stopping him from taking the initiative on his own now. The truth is Bengal Congress leaders have preferred to stay in their comfort zone over creating a pan-Bengal base, something that Mamata Banerjee achieved.

The handful of MPs remaining in the Bengal Congress are camping in Delhi as the winter session of Parliament is on. For the first ever, the Congress is without an MLA in Bengal, a dubious distinction that it shares with once-bitter-foe-turned friend, the mainstream Left.

Bidhan Bhawan, the headquarters of the Congress's Bengal unit, which is usually derelict has been busy otherwise with a familiar phenomenon playing on just outside the premises on Central Calcutta’s Lalmohan Bhattacharjee road: protests by disgruntled Congress workers over distribution of tickets.

Protests, streetfights, ransacking offices are not alien to Bengal Congressmen. That there are multiple contenders from the same ward has surprised even most hardboiled Congress leaders who have stayed put in the party for reasons defying logic as well offers and threats from the ruling Trinamul.

In this season of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, the Congress camp has been in complete disarray.

The observers’ committee is headed by Nepal Mahato. A committed Congressman, Mahato has been a four-time MLA from Purulia’s Jhalda and later Baghmundi. His appointment did raise eyebrows.

“Does Nepal Mahato know the wards of Calcutta? Does he know any of the workers here? Couldn’t the state leadership find anyone in Calcutta? At least Pradip Bhattacharya is there,” says a Congress leader.

The Palm Avenue resident and neighbour of former Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the 76-years Pradip Bhattacharya has not been included in either of the committees. The campaign committee for CMC polls is headed by Mushtaq Alam, a former MLA from Malda, and also includes Monalisa Banerjee, contesting from ward 49 on a Trinamul ticket.

Worse still for the grand old party, Bengal unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who has barely spent six hours in all these months at Bidhan Bhavan since the disastrous Assembly elections, does not appear to be listening to anyone, not even himself.

On March 8, 2020 before the Covid pandemic forestalled the civic polls in Bengal, Chowdhury wrote a letter to then party president in Bengal, the late Somen Mitra with a list 15 names, nine from Calcutta and six from Howrah recommending their candidature for the civic polls which were due since last year.

“I am sending few names they are doing hard work in their respective area to rejuvenate out party. But I hope (sic), now days that are quite neglected. I never said you anything after 2018 but it is 2020, after 3 years, I am sending you the names please do the needful.”

Chowdhury addressed the letter to “Dear Sh Soumen da.”

After Mitra’s untimely death last year, the Congress high command decided to hand over the reins to Chowdhury again.

While finalising the list for the CMC candidates, Chowdhury seems to not remember the letter he wrote to Mitra.

Among the nine names that Chowdhury had recommended, only five—Shahina Javed (ward 28), Wahida Khatun (ward 46), Soumen Paul (ward 76), Trina Mukherjee (Ward 71) and Shampa Ghosh (ward 93) --- made the cut.

Chowdhury himself had recommended the name of Imran Khan for ward 44. But the ticket went to one Zahid Anwar. On Monday, Khan’s supporters held a demonstration outside Bidhan Bhawan.

“Had the Youth Congress president, Shadab Khan, been made the candidate under the YC quota there would have been no trouble,” said a Congress leader.

In ward 95, Chowdhury had recommended Subir Chowdhury in March 2020. When the list of candidates was announced, Rabindranath Ghosh was nominated. In the third list Ghosh has been replaced by Tarun Guha Thakurta.

So far, the Congress has announced candidates for around 125 wards. There is no clarity whether more names will be announced or not. The deadline for filing nominations ends on Wednesday.

The Left Front which was the first to publish its list of candidates has left around 16 seats for the Congress, Indian Secular Front and other likeminded parties and individuals who can defeat both the Trinamul and the BJP in the December 19 polls.