Battered by charges of corruption in a seemingly unending series of cases, from the school job scam to the coal and cattle smuggling cases, and, most recently, the PMAY beneficiaries list controversy, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal is bracing for rough weather ahead, with the panchayat elections scheduled for early next year. Its desperation is evident in the recent image makeover attempts of its second in command Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Abhishek started campaigning in the districts as part of the party’s panchayat poll preparations in East Midnapore and Nadia. During the visit, he went on spot inspections of some panchayats, where he listened to people’s complaints, alleging non-functioning of the local TMC-led panchayat bodies. In both cases, Abhishek ordered the panchayat pradhans to resign — in well-publicised, orchestrated moves — which the pradhans duly did within 24 hours.
The first was on December 3, when he stopped by the Marishda gram panchayat in East Midnapore before his rally in Kanthi, where many locals alleged they had not got basic amenities from the panchayat. Within 24 hours, panchayat pradhan Jhunurani Mondol, her assistant Ramkrishna Mondol and TMC block president Goutam Misra had resigned.
A week later in Nadia, while addressing a mammoth rally at the Milan Mandir ground in Ranaghat town Saturday, he cracked the whip on the pradhans of some TMC-led gram panchayats. The TMC national general secretary asked the pradhan of Tatla-I gram panchayat in Nadia to resign for not visiting the area in the past four years. Soon after the directive, Parthapratim Dey tendered his resignation.
According to TMC sources, it is just the beginning, as Abhishek will continue this exercise before the panchayat elections all across the state.
Abhishek’s TMC image makeover exercise had begun with his Martyrs’ Day rally address in Kolkata on July 21, when reacting to the expulsion of top leader Partha Chatterjee from the state cabinet and party membership, he had said, “If you want to be a part of the TMC, you have to respect the party discipline. If you join the party for vested interests, you have no space here. The TMC has no space for contractors. The party will not give tickets to those who indulge in corruption.”
“There is no leader other than Mamata Banerjee in the TMC. I am also a party worker. Do not indulge in internal squabbles. We will not tolerate that,” he had continued.
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A senior TMC leader recently said, “Corruption charges can be labelled against anyone, but it is very tough to prove. But here, the political perception is the main thing. Once a perception builds up about an individual among the people, nobody can erase that. Abhishek knew very well that after the arrests of Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondol, the perception of TMC under cloud had begun to gain traction, which he is trying to minimise. That is why he is regularly saying that leaders who have corruption charges will not get tickets in the panchayat polls.”
Another senior TMC leader, who is member of a panchayat, said, “It is okay that these panchayat pradhans resigned after Abhishek’s diktat. But, who is Abhishek Banerjee to order this? He can order a party block president, not an elected panchayat member.”
The Opposition parties have dismissed these steps as “eyewash”, claiming that people would not be hoodwinked.
On the same day Abhishek was addressing his rally in Kanthi, the state Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari held a rally at Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas, where he alleged, “The local MP (Abhishek) eats everything. What does he eat? He eats coal, sand, cows, and bottles of liquor. He also eats money from school uniforms. He has sold jobs, around 50,000 of them.”
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Afterwards, BJP leader Samik Bhattacharya said, “People living under panchayats very well know of TMC’s corrupt practices. So, Abhishek Banerjee will not be able to fool them.”
CPIM leader Sujan Chakraborty also said, “People have caught the lies of the TMC. So now they are trying to recover their image. But, people are not fools.”
