Irked By Rahul Gandhi Getting The Limelight, Mamata Banerjee Wants Non-Congress Allies To Assert Themselves

Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee is unhappy with Congress scion Rahul Gandhi hogging the limelight on all issues of importance. 

She has now embarked on a mission to nudge non-Congress constituents of the INDI Alliance to assert themselves and stop Gandhi from being the centre of attention both inside and outside Parliament.

Banerjee, who landed in Mumbai last evening (11 July) to attend the wedding of Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani’s son Anant, will meet Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) patriarch Sharad Pawar, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on 12 July. Yadav will also be in Mumbai Friday.

The purpose of these meetings, two senior Trinamool leaders who are very close to Banerjee told Swarajya, is to impress upon the three political leaders that Gandhi should not be allowed to walk away with all the credit for the INDI Alliance’s good show in the Lok Sabha election and for putting the government on the mat both inside and outside Parliament. 

While Banerjee has a good equation with Sonia Gandhi, she does not hold Rahul Gandhi in high regard and feels undue credit has been given to him for the INDI Alliance’s Lok Sabha performance.

Banerjee is learnt to have told a close aide, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, that Gandhi does not deserve any credit for the wins by the INDI allies in most states.

“Rahul Gandhi’s contribution to the electoral outcomes in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and many other states where the BJP did not do well at all is zero. He is getting undue credit for the setback that the BJP suffered,” Banerjee told the Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) recently. 

The Bengal chief minister is also unhappy with Gandhi hogging the limelight inside Parliament. “He is getting too much attention in the media, as if he is the only person who is highlighting issues. The media is not highlighting what other partners of the INDI Alliance are doing or saying inside Parliament,” she told another close associate who is a Lok Sabha MP from a constituency neighbouring Kolkata.

The Trinamool Congress chief wants the non-Congress partners in the INDI Alliance to assert themselves. She has already spoken to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi and will meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin in the near future. She will also speak to other non-Congress partners in the INDI Alliance on this matter.

“Our leader (Mamata Banerjee) will now talk to all partners of the Alliance and motivate them to assert themselves. She will tell them that if Rahul Gandhi is allowed to take all the credit for opposing the Modi government on various issues, the partners will only get marginalised at the cost of the Congress,” the Lok Sabha MP, who is also a veteran politician, told Swarajya. 

Banerjee will talk to Thackeray, Pawar, and Yadav to impress upon them the need to evolve a mechanism so that all partners of the INDI Alliance get their due attention and prominence. 

“A mechanism should be laid down where major issues against the BJP that need to be highlighted both inside and outside Parliament are assigned to different partners of the alliance. That way, all partners will get their due attention,” said the Lok Sabha MP. 

“For instance, if Rahul Gandhi highlights the Agniveer or Manipur issues in Parliament, another alliance partner should get to highlight another issue, like farmers distress or the NEET mess. All issues of the day cannot be commandeered by Rahul Gandhi and the Congress alone. This is what our leader feels,” he added.

Banerjee will tell the three political leaders she will meet in Mumbai that the INDI Alliance is a partnership of equals and no single party should get all the credit and attention. 

Congress has to display magnanimity and give respect to all partners in the INDI Alliance, feels Banerjee. It is learnt that she will tell Yadav that he, and not Gandhi, should take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for issues like the Hathras tragedy.

“Rahul Gandhi went to Hathras and met the victims’ families. He has made it an issue, while it should have been Akhilesh who should have been allowed to highlight the issue. I’ll tell him that he should not allow Rahul Gandhi to take up each and every issue involving Uttar Pradesh because he is the dominant partner of the INDI Alliance in UP, and not the Congress,” Banerjee is said to have told another close aide who is a cabinet minister at Nabanna (the state secretariat).

Similarly, the issues pertaining to Bengal should be highlighted by the Trinamool Congress and those relating to Tamil Nadu by the DMK. As for pan-India issues, the task of highlighting them should be shared by all partners of the alliance, Banerjee feels. 

Banerjee will also discuss the issue of floor coordination between INDI Alliance partners with Pawar and Thackeray. She will tell them that the non-Congress parties in the alliance cannot be expected to play second fiddle to the Congress in Parliament.

“It cannot be a one-way relationship with our MPs joining the chorus on issues raised by Rahul Gandhi and following the lead taken by the Congress in trooping to the well of the House or staging walkouts. The Congress also has to allow us to take the lead and follow us,” Banerjee told the Rajya Sabha MP. 

For instance, she feels Trinamool MPs should raise the issue of misuse of central agencies by the Union government against opposition parties in Parliament and the Congress should then support the Trinamool MPs by lending its muscle in staging protests and walkouts. 

But more than ensuring that all INDI Alliance partners get an equal share of attention in and out of Parliament, the Trinamool Congress chief wants her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, to also take the national limelight. 

She feels that Abhishek, the Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour, is more astute and capable than Gandhi and should get his due attention.

Banerjee is miffed that Abhishek does not get much attention from the national media only because Gandhi is always in the limelight. That is why she wants Gandhi, who she does not think highly of anyway, to take the backseat at times and allow others to get prominence. 

But the Congress, which wants the spotlight to remain firmly and solely on Gandhi, is sure to resist Banerjee’s efforts. And that might create more tensions in the INDI Alliance.