By Tirthankar Mitra
It has been many summers since Mamata Banerjee floated Trinamool Congress in 1998, thus leaving the Congress a pale shadow of its former self in West Bengal, and no longer a political force to be reckoned with in the eastern state. However, post Congress’s decisive victory in Karnataka assembly elections, Chief Minister Banerjee’s call to all the regional political parties opposed to BJP to take on the saffron outfit in their respective support bases assumes mammoth significance.
In so many words, the Trinamool supremo offers a nationwide coalition formula against the BJP, which ought to have takers. Representatives of its political opponents arrayed together in several constituencies against BJP nominees have been a boon to the saffron camp.
But a change of dispensation at the Centre cannot be ruled out if the BJP faces a single opponent in the coming electoral battle in every constituency. With the vote-bank of its political opponent intact, it would be an uphill task for the saffron camp nominee to secure a victory in many, if not all, seats.
Banerjee’s clarion call to the Opposition parties to close ranks actually cloaks her message to her former party, the Congress. Despite being dissension-riven and hamstrung by the lack of charismatic vote-catchers, the Congress is still ahead of several other parties in the yet-to-be formed anti-BJP coalition, if one goes by its wide organisational base and raft of experienced leaders.
So far, poll opponents, instead of giving the BJP nominee a run for its money, cut into each other’s vote-banks, leaving the saffron vote-bank untouched. Precisely why it had often been a cakewalk victory for the BJP nominees, faced with a divided opposition.
Of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, Banerjee wants Congress to field candidates in 200 seats and leave the rest to the regional parties. It is doubtful if Congress leadership will be amenable to this division of seats.
However, it goes without saying that the Congress needs Trinamool’s support in West Bengal elections. It is the other way around in the rest of the country, leaving Congress in a better position to draw up the terms of seat negotiation, come 2024.
But while such welcome negotiations can keep on coming, one has to congratulate Banerjee for reading the tealeaves right. If one wonders what took her so long to think aloud, here are the answers.
Astute politician that the Trinamool chief is, she has admirably timed her offer, a year before the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections. With her comfortable majority in the state Assembly and a marked representation in the Lok Sabha, she is sitting pretty, notwithstanding agitations ranging on issues — from paying dearness allowance to state government employees at a higher rate, together with cash-for-teaching jobs scam rocking the state almost daily.
Trinamool’s dismal electoral foray in the northeastern states has been a wakeup call about the extent of its popularity beyond West Bengal. But Banerjee bided her time, as she preferred not to begin any negotiation for alliance till the grand old party attained a position of strength.
After all, the Congress’s performance in the Northeast was nothing to write home about either. Though with two MPs and an MLA, the Congress is not a force to reckon with in West Bengal, the resounding electoral success in Karnataka has nevertheless sent out a loud and clear message that the party is yet-to-be written off.
But roadblocks are already discernible in the path leading to Congress and Trinamool’s possible reconciliation with an eye on 2024. Though a practitioner of personal brand of politics, Banerjee has not yet voiced direct congratulatory messages to Rahul Gandhi, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and her one-time mentor, Sonia Gandhi, though she has congratulated the state of Karnataka for choosing secular politics over communal hatred.
The fact has been taken note of by none other than state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, who has accused Banerjee of trying to slink into the anti-BJP alliance sans an act of courtesy to the Congress leadership.
The West Bengal chief minister has asked Congress to refrain from opposing her in the state. Given the rash of litigations on corruption issues and a slew of agitations against her regime organised by the Congress-Left Front combine, the miniscule Opposition in the state has been a veritable thorn in the Trinamool’s flesh.
Congress cannot afford to stay away from the stirs now. After all, it is owing to these agitations that it has regained some ground below its feet.
The Congress-Left combination is another hurdle, which the party has to tackle before joining the anti-BJP coalition with Trinamool. For the state Congress will be loath to leave the Left who had stood by it against the ruling dispensation all these years.
For the Left, read CPI(M), sharing an anti-BJP alliance with Trinamool might not quite be the cup of tea. But then politics is the art of the possible. (IPA Service)
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