Trinamool’s Loss Of ‘National Party’ Status Buries Banerjee’s Lofty Ambitions Of Taking Party Beyond Bengal

It’s official: there is nothing ‘All India’ about the Trinamool Congress. 

Even though all party functionaries from top to bottom, including its chief Mamata Banerjee, have always made it a point to refer to their party as the ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ (AITC), there has been no justification for the ‘All India’ prefix. 

The recent order by the Election Commission of India (ECI) stripping the Trinamool Congress of its 'national status' is a psychological blow to the party. The Trinamool Congress is now only a 'state party' in the three states of Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura, even though it is struggling to maintain its tiny toehold in Tripura.  

The ECI’s order is perhaps the last nail in the coffin of the Trinamool’s attempts to spread its wings beyond Bengal’s boundaries. 

The party’s surprising performance in the 2021 Assembly polls where it was able to beat back a stiff challenge from the BJP provided headwinds to Mamata Banerjee’s ambitions to play a major role in the national political stage. 

Dreams Of Becoming The Prime Minister:

Banerjee has, for long, harboured ambitions of becoming a king-maker in the national arena, if not occupying the throne (the Prime Minister’s chair) herself. 

She started harbouring this foolhardy ambition from the early years of the last decade when anti-incumbency against the UPA regime started gaining momentum. The Trinamool chief’s calculation was that the 2014 Lok Sabha polls would throw up a hung Parliament. 

And with more than 30 MPs (from Bengal), she would be able to cobble together a ‘third front’ which, with outside support from the Congress that would be keen to keep the BJP out of power, would form the government at the federal level. 

In such a scenario, Banerjee calculated, she stood a good chance of becoming the Prime Minister. She even revealed this plan to her senior party colleagues. 

But the BJP’s handsome win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls upset her plans. Banerjee then directed her energies to position herself as the strongest critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, and thus becoming the rallying point for non-Congress opposition parties. 

Before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she was very confident that the BJP would fail to score a majority and a ‘third front’ led by the Trinamool would be able to form the government with support from the Congress. 

She even told her trusted colleagues in the Trinamool to prepare themselves to manage Bengal on their own since she would have to spend a major part of her time in New Delhi. 

Trinamool functionaries started projecting their party chief as the next Prime Minister of the country, and speculation was rife on who would be made the chief minister of Bengal. 

It was widely felt that Banerjee would either install a puppet in the chief minister’s chair, or anoint her nephew Abhishek as her successor.

But all those plans, too, came crashing down ignominiously when the BJP posted a resounding success in the 2019 elections. 

However, the Trinamool chief kept her dream alive. And her ambitions received a boost when she fought all odds and bagged an overwhelming majority of the Assembly seats in Bengal in the 2021 elections. 

Banerjee started projecting her party as the only one which can beat the BJP. “The Trinamool is the only party that has the guts to stand up to and take the BJP head-on,” she declared. 

SPREADING WINGS BEYOND BENGAL:

Assam:

One of the first states she set her sights on was Assam. She started building her party organisation there from the beginning of this century and in the 2001 Assembly elections, Trinamool candidate Jamal Uddin Ahmed won the Muslim-majority Badarpur Assembly constituency.

But that was the only success registered by the Trinamool in Assam. The party was simply no match for the Congress and the regional parties. 

And once the BJP emerged as the dominant force in the state in the middle of the last decade, the Bengal-based party stood no chance of developing roots in the state. 

The Trinamool fielded candidates from 14 constituencies in Assam in the 2021 Assembly polls. All of them faced ignominious defeats. 

Arunachal Pradesh:

The Trinamool had forayed into Arunachal Pradesh as well. In the 2009 Assembly elections in that state, the Trinamool won five seats and garnered a 15.04 per cent vote share. 

But within a few years, all Trinamool legislators joined other parties and the party organisation in Arunachal Pradesh crumbled in a few years.

Manipur:

The Trinamool Congress fielded candidates in 47 (out of 60) constituencies in the 2012 Assembly polls in Manipur. Mamata Banerjee personally campaigned for her party's candidates. 

The party performed creditably and won seven seats while garnering an overall 17 per cent vote share. But within a couple of years, all her MLAs had joined the Congress and other parties. 

In the next Assembly polls in Manipur in 2017, the party fielded candidates from 16 seats, but won just one and saw its vote share plummet to 1.4 per cent. Its lone MLA--Tongbram Robindro Singh--soon joined the BJP. The party has been totally wiped out from Manipur. 

Tripura:

The party created a splash in Tripura in 2016 by engineering the defection of seven MLAs of the Congress into its fold. The seven defectors were led by the Congress’ tallest leader in the state--Sudip Roy Burman. 

Many former ministers and MLAs, as well as functionaries at the state and district levels, along with thousands of Congress workers, switched over to the Trinamool. 

But within a year, Sudip Roy Burman and all the other MLAs who had joined the Trinamool switched loyalties to the BJP. Along with these MLAs, a huge number of Trinamool functionaries and workers joined the saffron party. 

The Trinamool was reduced to shambles and did not win a single seat in the 2018 Assembly polls in the state. It did gain another short lease of life when some more disgruntled Congress leaders joined its ranks.

Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek, as well as top leaders of the Trinamool, carried out a high voltage campaign for the Assembly polls earlier this year. They led processions, addressed rallies and delivered vitriolic speeches targeting the BJP and Prime Minister Modi. 

The party fielded candidates in 28 constituencies and all of them lost their security deposits. The party could garner a shameful vote share of 0.58 per cent. 

As of now, the party simply does not exist in Tripura. 

Kerala:

The Trinamool had also set its sights on this southern state and tried to position itself as a viable anti-Left alternative to the Congress. It fielded candidates in five constituencies in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but none of them won. 

The Trinamool contested from 70 seats in the 2016 Assembly polls from the state. Once again, none of its candidates won and most lost their security deposits. 

Goa:

This was another state where the Trinamool staged a high-voltage entry in September 2021. Mamata Banerjee personally led this foray. Her nephew Abhishek and top leaders of her party campaigned extensively in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly polls in the coastal state. 

Here also the Trinamool engineered defections from the Congress to bolster its ranks. A number of senior Congress leaders, including former chief minister Eduardo Faleiro, joined the Bengal-based party. 

The Trinamool spent a huge sum of money in its campaign and Goa was awash with posters, banners, buntings, hoardings and cut-outs of the Trinamool and its chief. The party promises a number of doles to the people. 

The Trinamool stitched an alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and fielded candidates in 26 seats while the MGP contested from 13 seats. 

The Trinamool drew a blank, but its ally (the MGP) bagged two seats. 

The party is virtually non-existent in Goa now. 

Meghalaya:

This tribal-majority hill state turned out to be another deep disappointment for the Trinamool, and for Mamata Banerjee personally. 

The party entered the political stage in the hill state in a rather dramatic fashion in November 2021 when former Congress chief minister Mukul Sangma and eleven other Congress MLAs left their parent party to join the Trinamool. 

The Trinamool expended huge resources in Meghalaya. It commissioned Prashant Kishore’s Indian-Political Action Committee (I-PAC) to carry out surveys and design its poll campaign. It rolled out a slew of promises, including monthly doles for women, unemployed and other sections. 

Top Trinamool leaders, including Mamata Banerjee and her nephew, campaigned extensively in Meghalaya and drew sizable crowds. The Trinamool’s high-voltage campaign created a loud buzz and many believed that the party would win a good number of seats and become part of the next coalition government in the state. 

Ultimately, the Trinamool won just five seats (in the 60-member Assembly). Most of the Trinamool candidates, including Mukul Sangma, scraped through with very narrow margins.

And as had happened in other Northeastern states in the past, there are very strong chances of the five Trinamool MLAs switching their loyalties back to the Congress or joining some other party. 

Other states:

The Trinamool has also tried to establish its presence in other states, namely Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. 

It took the defection route to do so; the party enticed some leaders from other parties in those states into its fold. 

In Bihar, it enticed BJP-turned-Congress MP Kirti Azad, and Janata Dal (United) leader Pavan Varma, to join its fold. 

In November 2021, former Congress chief of Haryana, Ashok Tanwar, joined the Bengal party. In Punjab, it got some second-rung leaders to join its fold. 

The Trinamool set up its branch in Uttar Pradesh in 2005. In the 2012 Assembly elections, it fielded a veteran Congress leader, Shyam Sunder Sharma, from the Mant seat. Sharma won, but defected to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) later. 

In October 2021, the Trinamool engineered the defections of two Congress leaders--Rajeshpati Tripathi and Laliteshpati Tripathi--grandson and great grandson respectively to former UP chief minister Kamalapati Tripathi--with a lot of fanfare.

But the Trinamool is not even considered to be a minor party in any of these states. 

Why These Forays Have Not Worked:

There are a few cogent reasons for this:

• The Trinamool depends only on engineering defections from other parties, primarily the Congress, to establish its presence in other states. No party can grow in such an inorganic manner.

The ECI nixing the ‘national party’ tag of the Trinamool Congress is thus only appropriate. Because at the end of the day, the Trinamool Congress is essentially a provincial party based in Bengal.

It’s high time the ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ drops the ‘All India’ suffix and accepts that it is limited to the narrow confines of Bengal.