There has been a lot of speculation as to what Mamata Bannerjee and her ace strategist Prashant Kishor are up to, especially when they started poaching leaders from the Congress. At that time, some speculated that the TMC’s main aim was not to defeat the BJP as much as it was to oust Congress. In fact, did Mamata share Modi’s agenda of achieving a Congress-Mukt Bharat?
However, when you take a look at the leaders it has poached from the Congress, apart from Sushmita Sen there are very few who are worth their political salt. Can the likes of Faleiro, Kiriti Azad, or Ashok Tanwar win their own seats let alone and the entire state for the TMC? The skeptics then were cited the case of Meghalaya where the entire Congress unit has defected to the TMC and told that this would be the model that will be followed in other states. But can you seriously expect this cut-and-paste politics to work in other states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, or even Haryana where Mamata Bannerjee has no presence whatsoever?
On the other hand, one does wonder as to whether Prashant Kishor has another card up his sleeve. After all, he is an ace strategist who helped craft PM Modi’s win in 2014 and many others after that. Does he have some deep strategy at play here that has not been revealed as yet? Or is he waiting for the results of the next 5 assembly polls before he reveals his hand? If Congress manages to win Punjab, Goa, and Uttarakhand then Rahul Gandhi’s candidature will gain fresh impetus. Especially, if Mamata fails to make a dent in Goa for then Congress leaders would claim that she is but a regional presence. Don’t forget this is exactly what happened to Arvind Kejriwal after he swept the last Delhi assembly polls and then tried to conquer Punjab and Goa.
Then again, what happens if Congress doesn’t win any of these states? We will once again be reminded of the fact that ever since 2014, Congress has contested 72 elections and lost 67 of these— as the newly minted TMC Vice President Pavan Varma told us in the Roundtable show on NewsX recently. If this happens then it would give a fillip to the Opposition’s concerns and it would look for a more formidable face to take on the BJP. That is when Mamata Bannerjee’s national ambitions will get a booster shot.
However, the one way where the TMC has begun to resemble the Congress is infighting. We saw the sharp (and very public) dressing down Mamata Bannerjee gave her star MP, Mahua Moitra recently. We have also seen nuanced differences in the statements issued by Manua and Derek O Brien for Goa. There is also the dynastic promotion of her nephew Abishek Bannerjee that is not unlike what happens in Congress.
So while the TMC may or may not get the Congress Party’s pan India presence, it has already acquired its high-profile tantrums and inner-party politics. Clearly, not the way to beat the BJP. Then again, we await Prashant Kishor’s Grand Plan.