By Sagarneel Sinha
The rebellion within the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, the erstwhile ruling party of West Bengal, has been the discussion of mainstream media for days now. The party has split in two ways — MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee and Lok Sabha MPs led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.
Ritabrata, now suspended by TMC, claims that his faction has the support of at least 64 out of 80 party MLAs. He is now recognised as the Leader of the Opposition by the new speaker of Bengal Assembly Rathindra Ghosh, after superseding Mamata’s official choice veteran Sovandeb Chattopadhyay for the post. Ritabrata was a former Rajya Sabha MP from Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M). He was expelled from CPM, and was embraced by TMC.
On the other hand, the rebel Lok Sabha MPs — reportedly 19 out of 29 — led by four-time Lok Sabha MP Kakoli have officially declared their support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Amid this, three Rajya Sabha MPs — Sukhendu Shekar Roy, Sushmita Dev, and Prakash Chik Baraik — have resigned from their posts.
Given the dramatic developments within the TMC, just a month after its defeat to the BJP, the Opposition parties and also a section of journalists and political commentators are seeing the shadow of the saffron hand behind all these splits and resignations. It’s a known fact that the saffron party requires two-third numbers in the parliament to pass constitutional amendments like the much speculated women reservation amendment linked with delimitation, which failed to get through last April.
Having said this, blaming the BJP doesn’t explain the reasons behind these splits within the TMC. This unraveling of TMC itself has a completely different story. Under its rule of 15 years, TMC had openly indulged in luring MLAs, councillors, Zilla Parishad, panchayat samiti and panchayat members belonging to the Opposition parties in the state. Months later returning to power in 2016, TMC orchestrated a change of power in Opposition-ruled Zilla Parishads of Murshidabad (Congress) and undivided Jalpaiguri (Left Front). When it came to defections orchestrated by TMC at the local level, the numbers were huge. The aim was to make an Opposition-free state. It almost succeeded in doing so, dealing a significant blow to the state’s democratic institutions. Opposition parties had to often knock the doors of the courts to get permission for protest rallies, reflecting the blatant misuse of state power and the authoritarian tendencies of the Mamata-led TMC government.
During this period of 15 years, 43 MLAs — 30 from Congress, 8 from the Left, and 5 from the BJP — joined the TMC, according to a X post by journalist Soumyajit Mazumdar. Surprisingly, none of these MLAs faced disqualification from the then speaker Biman Banerjee. Although Congress and CPM did file disqualification pleas, the speaker didn’t act — and as a result, the Opposition parties too didn’t pursue the matter later knowing the political will of the speaker. The ruling TMC had then openly supported these anti-democratic measures by rather blaming the Opposition for failing to come up with proof. For decades, the state hasn’t been accustomed to defection politics — a phenomenon known as Aaya Ram Gaya Ram politics. This tradition was normalised by TMC’s rule, aided by the then speaker Biman Banerjee, who failed to uphold his constitutional duties.
It is this political opportunism, cultivated by TMC during the last 15 years, that has now come back to haunt the party. To be fair, party’s supremo Mamata Banerjee has never been known for doing ideology-driven politics. Her style of politics has always been rooted in mass mobilisation politics, and opposition to the principal rival of the moment. Since the start of her political career, her politics involved a strong-anti CPM stance. To defeat CPM-led Left Front, she left Congress to form TMC, which allied with BJP-led NDA, the then ruling coalition at the Centre. Ahead of the 2001 state elections,
Mamata joined hands with Congress to challenge CPM-led Left Front, setting aside her past accusations that the grand old party had enabled the Left’s rule. After failing to defeat the Left, she later returned to NDA, only to join the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) years afterward. These repeated shifts of alliances were driven not by ideological convictions but by the single objective to end the Left rule and fulfil her long-cherished dream of becoming the chief minister of the state.
After the end of the 34 years of Left Front rule, and the subsequent growth of BJP as the main Opposition party at the expense of the Left, her politics shifted from anti-CPM to anti-BJP, aimed primarily to retain her power. The trajectory underscores how power politics, rather than ideology, has shaped the political character of Mamata and her party, TMC. It is this political opportunism that has now returned to haunt her and TMC.
The rebellion by TMC MLAs and MPs is also driven by political opportunism. These rebels now can’t claim moral status. Where was their conscience in all these years? Why is that their conscience arose only after TMC’s defeat and the subsequent outpouring of public anger in the streets of Bengal against TMC leaders? The bitter fact is that all these years they were busy relishing the fruits of power. They were largely comfortable with TMC’s fascist tendencies to prevent Opposition candidates from either filing or withdrawing nominations through terror and fear, and also toppling Opposition controlled local bodies. No amount of criticism of Mamata Banerjee or her nephew Abhishek Banerjee — who rose within the party to emerge as the second centre of power owing to his familial ties — can make these rebels saints, as they were complicit in aiding Mamata-Abhishek leadership in all these years.
As for allegations that the BJP is orchestrating the current rebellion, a comparison with the Left raises uncomfortable questions for the TMC. Since losing power in Tripura in 2018, the CPM-led Left Front has not witnessed a single MLA defecting to the ruling BJP. Likewise, after its defeat in Bengal in 2011, the Left retained all its 15 Lok Sabha and nine Rajya Sabha MPs, with none switching to the TMC. Defections among Left MLAs were also limited despite intense pressure from the then ruling TMC. During the assembly term of 2011-2016, only 8 Left MLAs out of 62 moved to the TMC, while 8 Left MLAs (2 to TMC and 6 to BJP) shifted their allegiance during the 2016-2021 term.
This contrast points to a crucial difference. Despite suffering repeated electoral setbacks, the Left has largely managed to hold its ranks together owing to its ideology-driven politics. The TMC, by contrast, has begun to unravel within a month, exposing the limitations of power-driven political opportunism that has long been a defining feature of the party.
Rather than blaming the BJP, TMC would do well to ask why it is struggling to keep its flock together. Equally, it would be better for the section of journalists and political commentators who are only interested to attribute every development to the BJP while overlooking the brutal authoritarian actions done by so-called secular parties like TMC in West Bengal.
The BJP, too, has reason to be cautious while dealing with these TMC rebels, who bring with them the baggage of anti-incumbency. Political opportunism has a way of returning to those who embrace it. (IPA Service)
