Congress Toeing Fine Line While Dealing with Mamata Banerjee

Party insiders said the Congress-Left pact was working on the ground and the alliance was set to win several seats despite the TMC ignoring their presence. They further said it was important to keep Banerjee in good humour at a time when the INDIA bloc was close to power at the national level.

New Delhi:The Congress is trying to strike a fine balance when it comes to dealing with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who proclaims to be an INDIA bloc ally, but had refused to contest the Lok Sabha polls jointly with the grand old party. Despite sincere attempts by the Congress managers, Banerjee had rejected all seat-sharing proposals for the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. The Congress then had no choice, but to go ahead with an electoral understanding with old ally the Left parties.

Though Banerjee had made some provocative statements before the polls saying the Congress was not capable of defeating the BJP nationally and would not win even 40 seats, she later changed her stance and started making pro-INDIA bloc noises. All this while the AICC managers were careful of describing Banerjee as a potential ally, who wanted to defeat the BJP at any cost.

West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who had been regularly attacking Banerjee during the campaign, said the Chief Minister had changed her stand sensing a victory of the opposition grouping across the country. Things were moving normally till Congress chief Kharge publicly snubbed Chowdhury at a recent presser in Mumbai two days ago where he noted that the high command and not the state unit chief will take a final call when it came to aligning with Mamata.

Kharge also noted that Banerjee had quickly changed her stand from supporting an INDIA bloc government at the Centre from outside to joining it. However, Kharge’s public snub to Chowdhury, who said Mamata could not be trusted, was followed by some people defacing a picture of the party chief at the West Bengal PCC office while alleging the veteran was a TMC agent.

Not sure whether those behind the incident were party workers or hired goons, on Monday a miffed AICC in-charge organisation KC Venugopal asked West Bengal in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir to submit a factual report into the acts of gross indiscipline, which took place on May 19.

“I am trying to gather the facts from the state leaders,” Mir told ETV Bharat. According to party insiders, the report may lead to action against those involved in the act of indiscipline, but also noted that it was important to identify the real culprits.

“These could be hired goons, who defaced Kharge’s picture to create a wedge between the Congress and the TMC. We should wait as the police are investigating the incident. No doubt, Chowdhury is a fighter and leads the party in the state,” a senior AICC functionary said.

His comments indicated the Congress was backing the state unit chief, who is also the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha since 2019. Party insiders said that the Congress and the Left pact was working on the ground and the alliance was set to win several seats despite the TMC ignoring their presence. They further said it was important to keep Banerjee in good humour at a time when the INDIA bloc was close to power at the national level.