New Delhi: The Congress has begun to take on the ruling TMC in West Bengal and will induct Abhijit Mukherjee, son of former President Pranab Mukherjee on Feb 12 as part of its plans to regroup in the eastern state.
“Abhijit Mukherjee will rejoin the Congress in Kolkata on Feb 12 in the presence of senior leaders. We welcome his homecoming. This will boost the Congress prospects in the state,” AICC secretary in charge of West Bengal Assaf Ali Khan told ETV Bharat.
The rejoining of Abhijit, a former Congress MP who had moved to the TMC in 2021, is being seen as a teaser to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who recently said she did not need the Congress to defeat the BJP in the state. He had been sending feelers to high command over the past year.
Though Abhijit is not considered to be a leader with a pan-state influence, his return to the grand old party will carry a symbolic significance and boost the Congress efforts to regain lost ground in West Bengal as he represents the legacy of ex-president Pranab Mukherjee who was a Congress veteran.
The homecoming of the ex-president’s son comes days after his sister Sharmishtha Mukherjee questioned Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit abroad soon after the passing away of former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Dec 26, 2024.
Around the same time, Sharmishtha also met pm Modi to personally thank him for granting land to build a memorial in the name of the former president who passed away on Aug 31, 2020, during the Covid pandemic.
According to Congress insiders, the Congress position is not very strong in West Bengal where assembly elections will be held in 2026 but is determined to regain the ground that it lost to the TMC formed by Mamata Banerjee in 1998 after spending 26 years with the grand old party.
“The TMC’s vote banks are essentially the traditional Congress support base. We still have a decent presence across several assembly seats. We will now regroup the party in the state and go to the people suffering from unemployment and price rise,” said Khan.
The advent of Mamata Banerjee who is pursuing her third term as chief minister certainly presents the Congress managers with an uphill task in reviving the grand old party in West Bengal.
The Congress and Left parties fought the 2021 assembly elections together but could not win even a single seat in the 294-member House. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections too Banerjee refused to have a seat-sharing pact with the Congress which could win only one of the 42 parliamentary seats in the state.
Besides the TMC, the rise of BJP over the past years has also compounded the problem for the Congress which blamed the regional party for playing the saffron party game.
“The TMC in a way helps the BJP polarise the electorate and stay in power. They have helped the saffron party grow in the state. The Congress is the only party which can counter the BJP nationally and must be strengthened,” said Khan.
