Recent Poll Outcomes Spark Demands By Trinamool To Put Mamata Banerjee In Driver’s Seat In INDI Bloc

The severe setback suffered by the Congress-led INDI alliance in Maharashtra and the Trinamool's sweep of the assembly bypolls in Bengal have rekindled demands by Trinamool Congress netas to place their party chief, Mamata Banerjee, in a lead role in the bloc. 

Four-time Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Kalyan Banerjee articulated this demand, promptly endorsed by other senior leaders of the party, which is that the Congress should take the backseat and allow Banerjee to take the driver’s seat in the alliance. 

“Despite repeated losses, why are they (Congress) not forsaking their ego and giving the responsibility to CM Mamata Banerjee? Only she can sound the death knell for BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party),” the Trinamool parliamentarian said. 

The Congress, said Trinamool’s chief spokesperson, Kunal Ghosh, has repeatedly failed to counter the BJP both at the national level and also in states where elections have been held in recent months. 

“It is the INDI alliance partners which have successfully thwarted the BJP. And of them, it is the Trinamool’s strike rate against the BJP that is by far the best. So the Congress should realise that it has failed to take on the BJP in straight contests. The Congress should concede that the Trinamool has succeeded in doing what it couldn’t and give our chairperson (Mamata Banerjee) the lead role in the alliance,” said Ghosh. 

Derek O’Brien, the leader of the Trinamool in the Rajya Sabha, said, “There is definitely something right in what Mamata Banerjee is doing, and that is why the Trinamool has been defeating the BJP in Bengal repeatedly.” 

“There has to be a re-thinking within the INDI alliance, and the Congress should acknowledge that Mamata Banerjee has succeeded where it (Congress) has failed. So Mamata Banerjee should be given the lead role in the alliance,” O’Brien said. 

Other senior leaders of the party have also lent their voices to the chorus. “Among all the INDI alliance partners, it is only the Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, which has defeated the BJP in successive elections in the last 10 years, whereas the Congress has failed repeatedly. So the Congress has to make way and allow Mamata Banerjee to take up the reins of the alliance if the BJP is to be defeated,” said Trinamool leader and senior cabinet minister Firhad Hakim. 

The Trinamool leaders said that Banerjee’s “development model” has been successfully copied in other states. 

“In Maharashtra, the Mahayuti’s ‘Ladki Behen Yojana’, which is a copy of our ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme, led to the success of the BJP and its allies there. Similarly, other welfare schemes and development projects initiated by our Chief Minister have been copied by other parties in various states. So it is only natural that Mamata Banerjee be given her due and made the leader of the INDI alliance,” said Trinamool’s Ghosh. 

Ghosh, Kalyan Banerjee, O’Brien, and others also pointed to Jharkhand, where the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led by Hemant Soren, trounced the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

“It is the non-Congress parties in the INDI Alliance, and not the Congress, which have demonstrated the capability of defeating the BJP-led NDA. And of all these parties, it is the Trinamool Congress which has repeatedly demonstrated that it has the capability of defeating the BJP. So Mamata Banerjee, and not the Congress, should play the lead role in the INDI alliance,” said O’Brien. 

Other senior leaders of the party who spoke to Swarajya said they will take up this issue informally with other INDI alliance partners during the winter session of the Parliament, which started on 25 November. 

But this demand — that the Congress leadership gives up the reins of the INDI alliance and hands them over to Banerjee — is sure to meet with stiff resistance and even outright dismissal by the Congress. 

A senior Congress functionary, who did not want to be named, told Swarajya: “The Trinamool should know its place. The Congress is the only national party in the alliance with a presence across India and has the largest number of MPs. So the leadership role in the alliance falls naturally on the Congress. The Trinamool has little presence outside Bengal and should tailor its ambitions accordingly.” 

Another senior Congress leader, who has been a strong critic of the Trinamool and Banerjee, told Swarajya that Banerjee’s ambition to play a lead role in the national arena is “a pipe dream.” 

“While it must be acknowledged that she has succeeded in thwarting the BJP’s rise in Bengal, the Trinamool also has to realise that its influence remains confined to Bengal. It has a limited presence in just a couple of other states, and that too because it had wooed away people from the Congress in those states. So there is no chance of Mamata Banerjee leading the INDI alliance. She is an important partner in the alliance, but it is the Congress which plays the lead role in the alliance,” he said. 

The Trinamool had anticipated this argument and has a counter to it. “The Congress had more MPs in Parliament than other parties, but that did not stop it from supporting non-Congress leaders such as Charan Singh, H D Deve Gowda, and I K Gujaral as prime ministers,” argued Ghosh.

“It is not just the numbers in Parliament that matter. The primary aim of the INDI alliance is to defeat the NDA, and Mamata Banerjee has proved to be the most successful in achieving this objective among all the partners in the alliance. So for the sake of the alliance and in order to achieve the goal of defeating the NDA, Mamata Banerjee has to be made the leader of the alliance,” said Trinamool Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee. 

The Trinamool, it is learnt, has already started working on its strategy of reaching out to the other partners in the INDI Alliance, like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), JMM, and Samajwadi Party, to put pressure on the Congress to hand over the reins of the alliance to Banerjee. 

“Our MPs have started speaking to MPs from the other parties in the (INDI) alliance on this. They will impress upon the other parties that it is high time Congress takes a backseat since it is incapable of taking on the BJP on its own,” said a senior Trinamool functionary. 

But this move, say Congress leaders, will lead to bad blood and will sour ties within the INDI alliance. If the Trinamool leaders persist with this demand, there will be a strong pushback from the Congress, and that will fuel dissensions in the alliance, warn Congress leaders. 

But that is not likely to dissuade Trinamool leaders from insisting that their chief, who has long harboured dreams of playing a lead role in national politics, be the captain of the INDI alliance.