What Happens To Mamata Banerjee’s ‘National Ambitions’ Now With The Trinamool’s Flop Show In Goa?

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s dreams of playing a pivotal, and even primary, role in national politics were dealt a blow yesterday (10 March). The results of the elections in Goa have undone her carefully crafted plans of leading a ‘third front’ that, she hoped, would propel her to the prime minister’s post in 2024.

With the Trinamool failing to win a single seat in Goa even after expending huge resources and deploying its top leaders, including Banerjee’s nephew and heir apparent Abhishek, Banerjee’s ambition of taking her party beyond the borders of Bengal have suffered a blow.

But it is not just the Trinamool’s performance in Goa that has put paid to Banerjee’s prospects of playing a ‘national’ role. The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) emphatic win in Punjab, and its better-than-Trinamool performance in Goa, has put AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal much ahead of her in the race for the leadership of a grouping of regional parties (or a ‘third front’).

After all, the AAP has two states — Delhi and Punjab — under its belt now, and has won two seats in Goa. Also, it already has an organisational presence — albeit a small one — in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh which are going to the polls later in the year. The AAP is expected to pick up a few seats in these two states.

The AAP, thus, has a much greater pan-India footprint than Banerjee’s Trinamool and Kejriwal can rightly claim that his popularity and acceptance goes much beyond the borders of Delhi that his party was born in. Banerjee can make no such claim, and that diminishes her chances of claiming leadership of a ‘third front’.

Kejriwal, like Banerjee, is also ambitious and there is no way that he will concede an inch to the Bengal Chief Minister in the race for leadership of the ‘third front’. Both hope that in the event of the BJP failing to cross the halfway mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a ‘third front’ with outside support from the Congress (which will be keen to keep the BJP out of power) can come to power. And the leader of this ‘third front’ would become the prime minister.

It is a different matter that the BJP’s resounding victories in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand have poured cold water on all predictions of the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) not being able to win a majority two years from now. Efforts of provincial leaders like Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Telangana’s K Chandrasekhar Rao and some others to cobble together a loose alliance of their parties have also been dealt a blow.

The Goa results have also shown Banerjee that her popularity is limited to Bengal only. Even the Bengali-speaking populace of Tripura and Assam’s Barak Valley remain unimpressed with her, as has been proven by her party’s woeful performance in last year’s civic polls in that northeastern state. The Trinamool won just one seat (of the 329 seats) to which polls were held.

The Trinamool has not even been able to open a functional party office in the Barak Valley that’s populated almost exclusively by Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims. It is the BJP and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) which hold sway there and the AIUDF will never allow any opposition space to the Trinamool.

Even in Goa, the Trinamool will face a pushback from the AAP, Congress as well as the other provincial parties. The results have shown that the Trinamool, despite its high-decibel campaign in the coastal state, failed to impress the electorate and could not shake off the ‘outsider’ tag.

The Trinamool’s impressive victory in the Bengal Assembly polls last year had fuelled Banerjee’s hopes of playing a pivotal role in national politics. Egged on by her political strategist Prashant Kishor, the Trinamool made an aggressive bid to emerge as a principal challenger to the BJP in Tripura.

But that entire effort came a cropper. The Trinamool tried to cannibalise the Congress by engineering defections of some of its second-ranked leaders and workers into its own ranks. But that ultimately did not help and the Trinamool has all but given up its plans in Tripura.

Despite the brave front it put up after its sorry show in Goa where it failed to win a single seat despite making very loud noises, the Trinamool has pledged to continue working in Goa. But that’s just bravado and it is only a matter of time before its leaders and workers in Goa leave for greener pastures.

There is no other state in the country that the Trinamool can realistically hope to foray into. Banerjee may have declared that her party will put up candidates to contest Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh, but even a novice will know that it is an empty boast. Thursday (March 10) has proved that Banerjee is a provincial politician whose popularity and influence does not expand beyond the boundaries of Bengal.

People outside Bengal are least impressed by Banerjee and her policies. Her much-touted but hollow and flawed ‘Bengal model’ (of development) has no takers outside Bengal, a revenue deficit state that she had driven deeper into the red. Her combative style of politics no takers outside Bengal.

And, hence, her ‘national’ ambitions will not be realised, at least in the near future. Thursday provided a reality check to Banerjee and her senior colleagues who feed her ambition of playing a large role in New Delhi. But it won’t be long before she starts tilting at the windmills again.