By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: It is no secret that Trinamool Congress is a divided house with rebels led by Uluberia (Purba) MLA Ritabrata Banerjee while old faithfuls including Sovandeb Chattopadhyaya and Kunal Ghosh continuing to owe allegiance to Mamata Banerjee. Now both are competing for a place in the sun. The dissident MLAs far outnumber the rump. Yet the footfall of party activists on July 21 Martyr’s Day was a clear pointer that allegiance of most of the rank and file still lies with Mamata Banerjee.
As the two groups endeavour to get the most political mileage, the rump has stolen a march over the dissidents. It has already held protest marches over BJP state government’s proposal to evict the hawkers from Kolkata’s streets.
Mamata Banerjee has participated in an agitation over the leak of National Eligibility Entrance Test(NEET) questions at Padmapukur, not far from her Kalighat home. By doing so, the Trinamool leader identified herself and her party with a nationwide agitation over the leak of questions for students seeking to study medicine. Canny politician that she is, Mamata Banerjee lost no time in seizing emotive issues and make her way into much needed spotlight. It has been eluding her ever since TMC ran into poll debacle.
Moreover, the Trinamool supremo has chosen the NEET issue which snowballed into the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, Union minister for education and a senior BJP leader. Thus her return to limelight is associated with specific anti-BJP issue reiterating her opposition to the saffron camp… She has returned to the spotlight although on a small scale. Her activities have stirred her party dissidents into action but their plan remains on the drawing board till date.
The situation is certainly not to the liking of the dissident faction. To divert attention from his followers inactivity, Ritabrata Banerjee and other dissident leaders have roundly criticised the style of functioning of Mamata Banerjee and her nephew, Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee hurling charges of autocratic functioning at the duo.
The allegations include charges of the Trinamool supremo overlooking the folly of her nephew leading to the election debacle and instead of pulling him up, heaping honours of a conquering hero on him. Even after the poll debacle, she had asked the victorious MLAs including 84-year Ratua legislator Samar Mukherjee to give Abhishek a standing ovation on the first internal meeting of the party.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool leaders being jeered and eggs being thrown at them hit the headlines. The chain of events over which neither Mamata nor Abhishek had little control began to snowball.
Leaders who swore by Mamata Banerjee during their waking hours overnight switched loyalty to the dissident faction. The desertion of state power minister Aroop Biswas, state urban development minister and Kolkata mayor, Firad Hakim and Birbhum strong man Anubrata Mondal are pointers that fissures have widened into cracks in Trinamool Congress.
Morale is low in the party So is the discipline read reverence towards Mamata Banerjee which kept prospective dissidents in line. But the electoral debacle snapped the bonds of discipline. On the day of July 21 function, Srirampur MP Kalyan Bandopadhyay bandied words with his party supremo after she asked him to cut short his address. This was an unthinkable state of affairs when a Trinamool government was enjoying comfortable majority a few months ago. The incident marked a new low in Trinamool Congress.
In the backdrop of these events, the Ritabrata camp was looking forward to a larger turnout for its July 21 rally. Its hopes fell flat. Even the Congress rally at Sahid Minar on July 21 drew a larger crowd than the one at Ritabrata faction’s rally site at the foot of the Gandhi statue at Mayo Road. This is a clear pointer to the popularity of the dissidents reaching rock bottom.
Given the situation, the dissidents have little option but to grin and bear this fact. A recent brainstorming session of the rebels prescribed visiting districts to increase visibility and popularity. But these visits would be more than public relations exercises. The dissidents are putting on their best efforts to shed the tag of being the B-team of the state saffron camp.
One of the principal areas of these outreach programmes would be opposing the Uniform Civil Code. The entire Opposition cutting across the ideological divide have closed ranks opposing its imposition.
The dissident leadership is of the view that opposing this key agenda of the BJP would go a long way of dissociating itself of the charge of being a saffron camp satellite. Once a Rajya Sabha member of the CPI(M), Ritabrata Banerjee would be principal speaker on this issue.
Being acquainted with the Left’s take on it, Banerjee’s criticism of the UCC would be the most germane than other members of this newly formed outfit. He will be holding rallies on this issue in Murshidabad and Malda, both districts having a considerable minority populace.
With the monsoon on, several rivers are in spate. Erosion of their banks and the lack of steps of the government letting it happen every year will be another topic the Trinamool dissidents will focus in their district tours.
Some of the corruption which occurred in the Trinamool regime will be another topic which will be brought under the scanner by the dissidents. There are however differences in the dissident Trinamool camp on this issue.
With several Cabinet ministers of the Trinamool government now in the dissidents camp, these issues may backfire on the speakers on the podium. The dissident camp leadership will be selective in choosing speakers addressing the corruption issues.
The dissident camp leaders also feel that the outreach programme will dent the propaganda of the Mamata group that the rebels are chary of visiting their constituencies. The group owing allegiance to Mamata Banerjee point out that the difference in the size of the crowds on July 21 programme is an accurate pointer to their claim of being the ‘real Trinamool”. (IPA Service)
