West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today virtually aborted the I.N.D.I.A. bloc alliance in the State stating that only the Trinamool had the capacity to fight and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
“Banglay Trinamool Congress larai korbe (In Bengal, the Trinamool will fight),” Mamata said addressing a public meeting at Deganga, in North 24-Parganas district. “Only the Trinamool Congress can teach the BJP a lesson in Bengal and show the path to the country.”
Mamata Banerjee did not mention the I.N.D.I.A. alliance even once in her hour-long speech.
According to Trinamool sources, Mamata’s statement on Thursday could be an attempt to arm-twist the Congress into settling on a seat-sharing formula on her terms. Her sworn ideological rival, the CPIM-led Left Front, has categorically ruled out any electoral adjustments with the Trinamool Congress, despite the occasional joint protests on several issues in Delhi including the recent suspension of Opposition MPs from both houses of Parliament.
“The situation in Bengal is different from the rest of the country. Here, the fight is against both the communal BJP and the corrupt Trinamool,” said a CPM politburo member. “The Trinamool Congress is not interested in fighting against the BJP. They want to protect their own interests.”
On Wednesday, the Congress MP from Malda South, Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, had claimed that Trinamool Congress had offered two seats, Malda South and Berhampore, which are the last two remaining Congress citadels in the State, to the Congress. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Congress Parliamentary Party leader, who represents the Berhampore seat, has disclaimed all knowledge of any such move by Mamata Banerjee and her party.
Most Congress leaders in Bengal are also against joining hands with the Trinamool Congress, though on some of the issues, like the cash-for-query controversy around the former Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra, both the Congress and the CPM had come out in her support even before her own party.
“There is a lot of uncertainty on whether we will contest the polls in an alliance with either the Trinamool or the Left in Bengal. We want the air to be cleared. There is not much time left for us,” said a Bengal Congress leader.
Last week, at the I.N.D.I.A. bloc meeting in New Delhi, Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal had suggested Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s name as the Prime Ministerial nominee, which the latter turned down, stating that winning seats against the BJP was more important than posts and such issues could be discussed after defeating the BJP.
Since coming to power in Bengal in 2011, the Trinamool leadership actively pursued a policy of poaching elected representatives and organizational leaders from both the Left and the Congress.
The Congress, the Left Front contested the 2021 Assembly polls in an alliance with the Indian Secular Front and ended up with zero seats. Only one ISF candidate, Naushad Siddiqui, won from Bhangor.
The Congress nominee from Sagardighi, Bayron Biswas, won from the seat as a Congress-Left alliance candidate early this year but later defected to the Trinamool. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress had won 22 seats. Later, it won the Asansol parliamentary seat in a by-election, while another BJP MP from Barrackpore defected to the Trinamool Congress.
