The Trinamool Congress vs the Congress tussle playing out in the open has left many people wondering if the two parties are allies or adversaries.
The problem between the two parties seems to be that the Congress, which has shrunk nationally since 2014, feels it is the natural anchor of any opposition grouping against the BJP. The TMC thinks it is more suitable for the job.
Theoretically, the two parties have a common political rival, the BJP. However, in practice, the power tussle between them could dent the larger opposition unity they are trying to achieve.
The TMC bases its national projection on the anti-BJP aggression displayed by its founder and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, while the Congress claims that former party chief Rahul Gandhi is the only politician who has consistently taken on PM Modi.
The national dreams of Mamata Banerjee were fired after she secured a third consecutive term as chief minister of West Bengal in May by single-handedly defeating the BJP’s juggernaut, led by PM Modi.
Since then, the TMC has been trying to replace the Congress as the rallying point of opposition unity for the 2024 national elections but it must contend that the latter is the only party with a pan-India presence.
This, the Congress leaders claim, gets reflected in the number of members of Parliament (89) and MLAs (767) the grand old party has in comparison to the TMC’s 35 MPs and 236 MLAs, most of whom come from West Bengal.
The TMC knows the difference but accuses the Congress of being indecisive and lacking the aggression needed to dislodge the BJP.
In her eagerness to top the charts of popularity, Mamata, who was part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance at the Centre, even went to the extent of questioning the existence of the grouping and suggested the formation of a new non-Congress anti-BJP front.
However, the TMC chief’s efforts hit a wall as she faced resistance from the Shiv Sena, which is part of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, along with Nationalist Congress Party and Congress.
The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi was akin to a mini-UPA, Sena leader Sanjay Raut noted as he suggested that the state-level grouping should be extended nationally.
Raut, who later met Rahul Gandhi in Delhi, observed that no anti-BJP front was possible without the Congress and urged the Kerala MP to take lead in the matter.
Bengal politics
The TMC-Congress rivalry may be linked to the national ambitions of the former but the roots of the tussle lie in West Bengal.
Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011, ending the 34-year reign of the CPI-M led Left Front under chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya when the TMC won 184 of 294 assembly seats. She returned to power in 2016 with 211 seats and in 2021 with 213 seats.
The TMC and Congress had an alliance in 2011 but the grand old party chose to align with the Left parties in 2016 and again in 2021.
After 2014, the Congress and the TMC often worked together to corner the ruling BJP in Parliament. In the 2019 national elections, the TMC bagged 22/42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The Congress could win just two seats while the Left parties were decimated.
The TMC’s rise in the state meant a steady decline in the Congress’ fortunes which failed to win even a single seat in this year’s assembly polls.
In the years preceding the 2021 polls, the TMC engineered defection of many Congress leaders who joined the regional party either out of fear or to curry favours from the establishment.
Rivalry with the TMC forced Congress state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to assert that the grand old party was fighting against both the BJP as well as the TMC.
This was one of the key reasons behind the Congress preferring the CPI-M led front in West Bengal while opposing the formation in Kerala.
Just like the Congress, the CPI-M too lost workers to the TMC and opposed Mamata Banerjee in the assembly and on the streets.
Unfortunately, both the Congress and the Left could not withstand the TMC’s aggression and their position got weakened over the past years.
The arrival of the BJP dealt a further blow to the CPI-M, which lost its traditional Hindu vote to the saffron party. Given the 30 percent Muslim voters in the state, the TMC vs the BJP match became more prominent.
Soon after the 2019 national elections, Mamata Banerjee adopted a more aggressive posture and regularly attacked PM Modi in the hope that it would help the chief minister consolidate her position ahead of the 2021 assembly polls.
Somewhere along the line, her hopes of converting the 2024 national elections as a Mamata vs Modi contest also flowered and started taking shape.
As part of its efforts to expand the party’s presence beyond West Bengal, the TMC is trying to make an impact in Tripura and Goa and has plans for UP and Haryana, but there is a limit to what it can achieve in the short-term given the lack of organizational set up and faces in the new territories.
PK factor
The role of poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who advised Mamata Banerjee in the assembly polls and is now playing a role in her national projection, in the TMC-Congress tussle cannot be ignored.
Many in the grand old party believe that Kishor, who had sought to join the Congress but could not, is behind the migration of its leaders to the TMC.
In August, when Sonia Gandhi had organized a virtual meet of opposition leaders, Mamata Banerjee had attended the session but things changed and the TMC chose to skip a meeting convened by Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on the opening day of the Winter Session of Parliament.
TMC’s forays in Goa and its bonding with the AAP in Delhi provoked the Congress to accuse the two parties of trying to divide the secular votes. Mamata charged that the Congress lacked aggression.
As the TMC’s attacks on the Congress became sharper, the grand old party reminded the regional party not to lose sight of the bigger goal of opposition unity for 2024 national polls.
Mamata seems to be on a roll but a timely snub from Shiv Sena resulted in the TMC tweaking its stance and saying that it was merely trying to pull the Congress out of inertia.
The Congress must now live up to the position it claims.
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