Bengal Congress In Utter Confusion Over Mamata’s Olive Branch To The Party

KOLKATA: Congress national leadership has a tough task ahead of it to make some of its West Bengal unit leaders cooperate with Trinamool Congress in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Given earlier intra-party differences coupled with panchayat election clashes, the bonhomie between Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and former Congress chiefs Sonia and Rahul Gandhi at the Opposition meet at Bengaluru is yet to percolate to several state Congress leaders.

The INDIA (Indian National Devlopment Inclusive Alliance) Opposition alliance formation has led to confusion and contradiction among some of the Congress state unit leaders. While some of the leaders feel that the travails of the rank and file havebeen bulldozed to cobble together the alliance, there are others who feel that ruffled feathers can be smoothed out.

Not quite opposing the alliance, state unit Chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury felt with the groundswell of nationwide support for Congress after Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, it is Trinamool which needs Congress more now. He took this occasion to remind the party rank and file that Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011 with Congress help and yet she denied it.

Given the prevailing condition in the state, the people are disillusioned with TMC regime, the state Congress chief felt. In so many words, he made it clear that TMC should tow the Congress’s line in the newly formed alliance.

Not quite echoing Choudhury, another Congress leader Koustav Bagchi felt that the party leaders would find it hard to explain the rationale behind sharing a common Opposition platform with Trinamool Congress. How do we explain our joining an alliance with TMC especially to those who have lost their relations in rural poll clashes allegedly with TMC workers, he asked.

State issues cannot be road blocks in the path of formation of a National Opposition to BJP for 2024 elections, former state party unit chief, Pradip Bhattacharya said. One of the architects of the Congress-TMC poll alliance in 2011, the veteran leader felt thatit may take some time to iron out intra-, party differences but it is not a goal beyond the capacity of the leaders of the respective parties.

After all, an alliance had been worked out between the Left and Congress in 2016 Assembly elections. Both the parties had been considered to be old political opponents and had yet sunk their differences, Bhattacharya said.

The quandary in the state Congress over its coexistence with TMC in INDIA is out in the open. Sparks are likely to fly over intra-party disagreement, yet there is an effort to muffle discordant voices lest it splinter an anti-,BJP alliance.

The state Congress leadership has to take a call after weighing all possible options. Principally, it is a toss up between considering the humiliations by Trinamool a closed chapter and the unwelcome prospect of defying the party’s national leadership which is poised to enter into an alliance in which TMC is a key player.

For the past decades and more, the Congress is out in political wilderness. The prospect to make a comeback to political relevance in Bengal by being part of a national combine with TMC , is also nourished by many Congress leaders.

Inter-party squabbles are unlikely to consider being major obstacle. In this backdrop, the olive branch offered by TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee cannot be spurned. Totally.

Moreover, none of the leaders raising discordant voices opposing alliance which includes TMC can afford to break away from the party. They lack both the charisma and support base to do so.

The state unit of the CPI (M) has announced stepping up its agitation against the TMC state government. Along with the BJP in the state. The state CPI(M) is in a big swoop. The party wants to stick to the Congress- Left alliance against the TMC to continue, notwithstanding INDIA, but the party is not sure whether the Congress will finally stick to its alliance. Congress national leaders may think of their own party interests much more than the alliance with the Left in Bengal. It seems that the Left Front led by the CPI(M) will have to move alone in the Lok Sabha polls.(IPA Service)