By Ashis Biswas
Post Bengal Assembly polls 2021, the CPI(M) conceded that its branding of the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC) as a tricky, undeclared ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)on some major issues, had backfired. Left parties saw the TMC as the Trojan horse within the opposition camp. They pointed to the apparent hostility of both parties to the working class, their alleged indifference to the plight of poor peasants, not to mention their propensity to overlook gross corruption on part of prominent leaders in their own ranks.
In their campaign, Left leaders sarcastically used the term ‘bijemul’ to refer to the TMC — an uneasy amalgam of ‘BJP’ and ‘Trinamool’, to denote an unprincipled political affinity. The main purpose behind the apparently opportunistic alliance was to ensure that neither side would launch an all out attack against each other.
Later, Dr Suryakanta Mishra as the CPI(M) State Secretary admitted that the Left’s accusations had not gone down well with common people who were helped by state welfare schemes and freebies like free cycles, Swasthyasathi, etc. The word ‘Bijemul’ is not much in use these days, as expected.
But now Left leaders could be in for a surprise: two major parties, the Indian National Congress and the Shiv Sena, reacting to the TMC’s recent expansionist moves in states other than Bengal, have come close to accepting the political logic that underlay the Left’s currently discarded slogan. Both parties are convinced that in trying to sideline the Congress within the opposition, the TMC is actually helping the saffron party. Its opposition to the BJP is only apparent, verbal.
Such a view is totally consistent with the anti TMC stand taken by Left leaders earlier.
Neither the Congress nor the Sena have used the ‘bijemul’ expression while referring to the TMC. But a recent article in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece noted that smaller parties that oppose the BJP and coordinate their activities with the Congress may be confused over the TMC’s call for a new anti-BJP Front led by Mamata Banerjee! The TMC’s plans to create a separate opposition group sidelining the Congress would never work. This can only divide the opposition.
Further Shiv Sena leader Mr Sanjay Raut said that in case there is a new formation within the opposition without the Congress in it, as suggested by Mamata Banerjee, it would certainly help the BJP, a Fascist outfit!
Such rhetoric is uncannily similar to words used by leaders of the CPI(M) and other Left parties during their pre Assembly poll campaign earlier this year. They cited several examples that suggested a tacit co-operation between the TMC and the BJP.
For instance despite the TMC’s involvement in the major Sarada chit fund/Narada bribery schemes, the Ethics committee in Parliament set up to monitor financial and other forms of corruption among MPs, never met even once in four years.
The contrast with the procedure adopted by the late Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee could not be more telling. During Chatterjee’s tenure several members lost their membership for their involvement in various forms of misdemeanour. But during the BJP’s tenure, TMC MPs shown live on major TV channels accepting money from various people, have gone scot-free — with the exception of Mr. Sudip Bandopadhyay.
Even though the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to investigate the allegations against MPs and other TMC leaders in the Chit fund and other scams, the official probe seems to go on for ever! Meanwhile senior TMC leaders against whom major corruption charges are pending, have been re-elected as MPs, MLAs or appointed as State Ministers.
As for the TMC, it has often targeted Union Home Minister Mr Amit Shah in connection with the increased earnings of his businessman son in recent years. But its criticism of the BJP on issues like the Raphael jets purchase, the NDA’s backing of the Adanis and Ambanis etc have been noticeably milder than the aggressive tone used by Mr. Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders.
And now Ms Banerjee has endorsed the Adanis as a major mover within the Indian economy and held a meeting with group head Gautam Adani in Kolkata — in the process reversing the earlier TMC stand of opposing the large Corporate sector! She is also calling for a closer centre/state co-operation, for the first time since she assumed power in 2011, apart from inviting the Prime Minister to attend the proposed Bengal Industry summit in April 2022 in Kolkata.
There was always much mystification among major political leaders and parties over the contrast between Ms Banerjee’s strong public denunciation of Mr Narendra Modi as a Prime Minister and also as a person and the relative ease with which she secured appointments with him whenever she wanted –a privilege most other Chief Ministers do not enjoy. Her routine explanation to newsmen never varied: she discusses the problems of her state, including financial constraints, border issues, delays in receiving central funds…
Mostly however, no senior state official accompanies her in such meetings, nor is there any briefing/announcement from the PMO either. As CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakravarty has often said, Ms Banerjee’s links with the BJP went deep, enabling her to switch from the BJP to the Congress and back with remarkable ease! Also, most TMC leaders in Bengal went over only to the BJP when changing sides before the Assembly polls. And now BJP men were joining only the TMC in large numbers after the Assembly polls. Most observers are surprised that other parties like the Congress or left outfits are never chosen by either side.
While neither the CBI nor the ED apparently pressing the TMC leaders too hard during their never ending investigations, the Bengal-based party frequently walked out of both houses of Parliament when it was voting time on major issues. Until recently, the BJP had no majority in the Rajya Sabha and the TMC’s abstentions, deliberate or otherwise, helped the saffron party to wriggle out of dicey situations. It was no different in the Lok Sabha.
Now almost similar words have been spoken by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Mr Bhupesh Baghel during a recent interview. Ms Banerjee was currently on a mission he said, to make India ‘a Congress-mukt (free from the Congress) Bharat’! If the TMC was to stay in the opposition, let Ms Banerjee first declare whom she would fight and make her own position clear — would she fight against other opposition parties or against Mr Narendra Modi and the BJP? Mamata Banerjee’s latest political line can revive in Bengal again the ‘bijemul’ slogan at the behest of the Left and the Congress. (IPA Service)
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