Trinamool Likely To Reach Informal Understanding With CPI(M) To Take On BJP In Tripura

Proving once again that it has no qualms in shaking hands with a sworn enemy for power, the Trinamool Congress is attempting an informal understanding with the CPI(M) in Tripura.

After its sweep in Bengal, the Trinamool has started harbouring aspirations to play a role at the national level. To achieve that objective, the Trinamool is desperate to expand its footprints beyond Bengal and establish a credible presence in some other states.

That’s why, immediately after the results of the Assembly elections in the state were announced on 2 May, Trinamool general secretary and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek announced that the party will be expanding to other states.

The Trinamool chose Tripura, and for obvious reasons, as the target of its ‘expansion’. Being a very ‘Bengali’ party rooted in Bengal and sans a pan-Indian outlook and vision, it is impossible for Mamata Banerjee’s party to even gain a toehold in a non-Bengali state.

Bengalis form 69 per cent of Tripura’s population, while tribals constitute the remaining 31 per cent. Muslims form 8.6 per cent of the state’s population and, thinks the Trinamool, can easily become its trusted vote bank.

The Trinamool had a presence in Tripura in the past. Its former general secretary Mukul Roy had helped the party set up a small base in the Northeastern state in 2012. Roy had also engineered the defection of six MLAs from the Congress to the Trinamool in 2016.

But following the exit of Roy from the Trinamool and his entry into the BJP in September 2017, the six Trinamool MLAs in Tripura also joined the BJP.

The Trinamool had fielded candidates in 24 (of the 60) Assembly seats in Tripura in the 2018 elections there, but drew a blank and could bag only 0.3 per cent vote share.

Now that Roy is back in the Trinamool, the party plans to utilise his links with politicians in Tripura to re-establish its presence and re-build a base there.

Immediately after the Trinamool returned to power for the third consecutive term in Bengal, Mukul Roy started plotting his return to his old party. One of the conditions set for his return by the Trinamool top leadership was that he would re-establish the party's base in the Northeast.

And even before he formally returned to the Trinamool on 11 June, Roy dutifully established contact with a couple of the six Tripura MLAs he had brought from the Congress to the Trinamool and who later followed his lead into the BJP.

Roy’s pointsman in Tripura has been Sudip Roy Barman, a five-time MLA and son of former chief minister Samir Ranjan Barman. Barman was one of the six Congress MLAs who joined the Trinamool and then the BJP.

After the 2018 Assembly polls which brought the BJP-IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura) to power in the state, Burman (who had contested and won on a BJP ticket) was made the health minister.

But he was sacked from the ministry for ‘anti-party activities’ in June 2019. Burman has been harbouring chief ministerial ambitions and had tried to oust chief minister Biplab Deb from the post. He has been in touch with Mukul Roy and had been trying to woo at least four other BJP MLAs to defect to the Trinamool.

However, his efforts had not borne any fruit. Burman had tried to whip up dissidence against chief minister Deb and matters did take a serious turn with a number of BJP MLAs complaining to the party’s central leadership against the CM in May-June.

But following intervention from the party leadership--two senior BJP leaders reached Tripura last month to quell the dissidence and broker peace--everything was sorted out. Even Burman has, according to some senior BJP leaders in Tripura, been placated and he has committed himself to thwarting the Trinamool’s forays into Tripura.

Unable to engineer a revolt within the BJP and draw away a few MLAs from the party, the Trinamool has opened a dialogue with the CPI(M).

Trinamool’s Tripura state president Ashish Lal Singh, the son of the state’s first chief minister Sachindra Lal Singh, has been in close touch with CPI(M) leaders, including former chief minister Manik Sarkar, to reach an informal alliance of sorts with the Marxists to take on the BJP.

The Trinamool does not have any organisational base in Tripura and does not have the resources and political capital to build such a base either.

The CPI(M), on the other hand, still has a respectable organisational base in Tripura. Despite its humiliating defeat in the 2018 Assembly polls when it won just 16 seats (down from 49 in 2013), the CPI(M) retains its base in that state.

The CPI(M) bagged a very respectable vote share of 42.22 per cent in 2018 even though it lost power. It has a committed vote base and its organisational structure is largely intact.

The Trinamool wants to leverage the CPI(M)’s organisational base and piggyback on it to gain a foothold in Tripura ahead of the elections in early 2023.

The idea to have an informal political understanding with the CPI(M) is said to have been mooted by Trinamool’s hired political strategist Prashant Kishor.

Facilitating an understanding between the Trinamool and the CPI(M) was one of the prime responsibilities entrusted to the I-PAC (India Political Action Committee) team that is now in Tripura.

The team from I-PAC (owned and run by Prashant Kishor) had been meeting CPI(M) leaders and had been attempting to lay the ground for an understanding between the two parties.

According to Prashant Kishor’s plan, the Trinamool and CPI(M) will have an informal understanding and will not contest against each other, especially in seats where the CPI(M) is strong.

In return, the CPI(M) will help the Trinamool organisationally in a few seats. The Trinamool will also offer the CPI(M) a chance to rebuild its organisation in Bengal.

It is primarily due to the relentless attacks on its functionaries and cadres by the Trinamool that the CPI(M) has been nearly decimated organisationally in Bengal. Most low and mid-level leaders and cadres of the CPI(M) had joined the BJP to save their skin since the BJP had emerged as a bulwark against the Trinamool in Bengal.

The Trinamool, through the I-PAC, has reportedly offered to stop attacks on CPI(M) functionaries and also those who joined the BJP from the CPI(M) in Bengal.

Instead, the Trinamool will encourage and facilitate the return of these people to the CPI(M) in the state. By doing so, hopes the Trinamool, the BJP will become weak in Bengal since the CPI(M) will pose a challenge to it in future.

Also, the informal (Trinamool-CPIM) understanding that’s being attempted will result in the Trinamool remaining in power in the state due to a divided opposition.

The game plan is to help the CPI(M) regain enough strength in Bengal to pose a challenge to the BJP. That, hopes Prashant Kishor, will prevent the BJP from becoming more powerful in Bengal and will hobble its prospects in 2024 (Lok Sabha elections) and the 2026 Assembly polls.

But, of course, the CPI(M) will also not be allowed to grow so powerful as to stage a comeback in Bengal. The idea is to keep the opposition divided and weak in Bengal.

The CPI(M) is being offered this deal in Bengal in return for support to help Trinamool win a few seats in Tripura in 2023.

The CPI(M)’s help is also being sought by the Trinamool to spread disaffection within the ranks of the BJP in Tripura and triggering dissidence within the saffron party.

That’s because the CPI(M) has the political wherewithal to attempt such a task; the Trinamool has nothing much beyond a few political lightweights as its leaders and barely any cadres. Mamata Banerjee’s party is unable to even gather a few score people to stage a demonstration in any part of Tripura.

Prashant Kishor has also been talking to top CPI(M) leaders like Sitaram Yechry in Delhi to get their consent to this ‘deal’ with the Trinamool.

Yechury is said to be personally in favour of this arrangement but some other party leaders are not. But, say political observers, the CPI(M) is likely to agree to the deal ultimately.

While it remains to be seen if Prashant Kishor’s game plan plays out in Tripura as per its script, political observers say it will be tough for the Trinamool to make a decent mark in the state.