Kolkata: After making a successful headway in the north-eastern hill state of Meghalaya, Trinamool Congress is all set for a “political coup” in another north-eastern state, Nagaland, currently a BJP bastion.
Trinamool Congress sources said that a total of 12 sitting MLAs of Nagaland are currently under focus and the discussions on this count are being spearheaded by vote-strategist, Prashant Kishor, and the party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee.
However, none of the Trinamool Congress leaders were ready to comment anything officially on this matter. Although party sources have confirmed that there is a constant attempt to expand the organizational base of the party in the northeastern state of Nagaland.
Trinamool Congress leader Bishwajit Deb officially confirmed “Mission Nagaland,” but refused to make any comment on who are probable names that might shift camps.
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So in short, after Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya, Nagaland is the next target in northeastern India for Trinamool Congress leadership to expand its organizational base.
On the other hand, sources from the Nagaland unit of BJP said that although BJP is the ruling party in Nagaland, there is a lack of mutual cooperation among the alliance partners. This, according to them, has created tension among a section of the BJP leadership, some of whom are keeping in touch with Trinamool Congress leadership.
There are rumours that some of them silently reached Kolkata and had held discussions with the top Trinamool Congress leadership. The names that are floating around include the names of Nagaland deputy chief minister and the speaker of the Nagaland assembly.
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However, senior BJP leaders have rubbished these reports as sheer rumours.
State president of Nagaland unit of Temjen Imna Along has even issued a statement claiming that such rumours are baseless. According to him, not a single BJP leader from Nagaland has made Kolkata their base.
To recall, before Mukul Sangma joined Trinamool Congress from Congress recently, the Congress leadership in Meghalaya too was in a denial mode.
However, later Sangma joined Trinamool with many other fellow MLAs. Now it is to be seen whether the same phenomenon will be repeated in Nagaland. However, it is clear that Trinamool Congress has now focused on Nagaland for expanding its footprint.
