Behind Mamata olive branch to Congress, a saga of stormy ties: Allies to ‘Ekla Chalo’, rivals to ‘unity’ bid

From being the Congress’s alliance partner in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the 2011 Bengal Assembly polls to cutting ties with the Congress in 2012 and adopting an “Ekla Cholo” policy, to poaching the Congress leaders and targeting Rahul Gandhi, to proposing a truce to the grand old party now – the relationship between Mamata and the Congress, her erstwhile party which she left to found the TMC on January 1, 1998, has all along been tumultuous marked with twists and turns so far.

In July 2008, when the CPI(M)-led Left Front withdrew support from the Congress-led UPA government on the nuclear deal issue, Mamata, then the TMC’s lone MP, rose in support of the UPA government during its trust vote.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress and the TMC forged an alliance to contest in Bengal, winning together 26 seats as against the Left’s 15. During the UPA 2.0 regime, Mamata became the railway minister in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet.

Their alliance again fought in the 2011 Bengal Assembly polls, which bagged 228 of the total 294 seats against the incumbent Left Front’s 62 seats, thereby ending the Left’s 34-year rule in the state. Mamata was sworn in as the CM for the first time, and the Congress joined her coalition government.

Their relations soon started souring though. When the Congress named Pranab Mukherjee as the UPA’s candidate for the July 2012 Presidential election, the TMC opposed Mukherjee’s candidature, although Mamata announced its “reluctant support” for him at the last moment.

In September 2012, in a sharp deterioration in their relationship, the TMC withdrew its support to the UPA government. In a retaliatory move, the Congress also did the same with regard to the Mamata government. Since then, the two parties have gone their separate ways in every successive Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

The Congress aligned with the Left Front and fought the 2016 and 2021 Assembly elections together, but the TMC swept both the polls.

After the March-April 2021 Assembly polls, in which the Left and the Congress were completely decimated as their tallies plummeted to zero seats, Mamata took over as the CM for the third consecutive term. While hailing Mamata as “the most accepted Opposition face”, the TMC’s mouthpiece, Jago Bangla, had then said that “Congress was in a deep freezer”. “The TMC has been saying that the Congress has failed, the UPA has ended. We need an Opposition coalition… The Congress is the biggest Opposition party, but it is sealed in the deep freezer. Their leadership is closeted inside a room and is only seen on Twitter… The country needs a coalition of Opposition forces. Opposition party leaders gave that responsibility to TMC leader (Mamata)… All Opposition forces are now looking towards her,” it stated.

In the August 2022 Vice-Presidential election, the TMC had sought to underline that it would not play second fiddle to the Congress by refusing to rally behind the Opposition’s V-P candidate Margaret Alva claiming that the Congress had picked her “unilaterally”. This was after the Opposition had jointly backed Yashwant Sinha, a TMC pick, as their Presidential candidate.

The relationship between the two parties had hit a new low during the February 2023 Meghalaya Assembly elections in which both were in the fray. Earlier, in November 2021, the TMC had made a dramatic entry in Meghalaya politics when 12 of the 17 Congress MLAs, led by ex-CM Mukul Sangma, defected to its fold. The TMC, which did not have any base in Meghalaya till then, had thus become the principal Opposition in the Northeastern state overnight.

So, while addressing an election rally in Shillong in February, Rahul Gandhi said, “You know the history of the TMC. You know the violence that takes place in Bengal. You know the scams, the Saradha scam that has taken place. You are aware of their tradition. They (TMC) came to Goa and spent huge amounts of money in Goa. The idea was to help the BJP. This is exactly the idea in Meghalaya. The TMC’s idea in Meghalaya is to ensure that the BJP is strengthened and wins.”

Hitting back at Rahul, TMC leader and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee tweeted, “@INCIndia has failed to resist @BJP4India. Thr irrelevance, incompetence & insecurity has put them in a state of delirium. I urge @RahulGandhi to revisit thr politics of vanity instead of attacking us. Our growth isn’t driven by money, it is people’s love that propels us.”

Abhishek also said, “By the same logic, when Congress contested 92 seats in Bengal Elections in 2021, was their idea to help the BJP? Rahul Gandhi’s statements against @AITCofficial is pretty rich, especially coming from a party that has lost 40 out of the last 45 Assembly Elections in India.”

During her campaign in Meghalaya, Mamata also criticised the Congress, saying, “Congress is seeking votes, do they have moral rights?”

Jago Bangla then joined in, stating that “During the Bengal Assembly elections the Congress worked as a B-team of BJP. Now, Left, Congress and BJP have openly joined hands.”

“In Meghalaya, the National People’s Party (NPP) is the ruling party. If anyone has the plan to attack, he should attack either NPP or BJP in Meghalaya. Instead of BJP or NPP, Rahul Gandhi attacked TMC. He basically made people understand which way the wind is blowing,” the TMC organ further said, adding “His (Rahul’s) whole family is tired of interrogation by the ED and CBI. He was defeated in his own constituency. He is a seasonal politician. Basically, outside Bengal, people are being attracted by TMC and Congress leaders can’t digest that.”

In February, when the Congress won the Sagardighi Assembly seat bypoll in Bengal by defeating the TMC candidate, Mamata was enraged. She said: “In 2024, we will see an alliance between the Trinamool and the people. We will not go with any of the other political parties. We will fight alone with people’s support. Those who want to defeat the BJP, I believe they will vote for us. The ones voting for the CPI(M) and Congress are actually voting for the BJP.”

In March however, after Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as a Lok Sabha MP following his conviction and sentencing over his 2019 Modi surname remark, the equation between the two parties again started improving. Addressing a rally of the TMC’s student and youth wing in Kolkata then, Abhishek said If Rahul could face conviction, and consequently disqualification, over a statement made during a poll rally, why should PM Modi not be charged for “hurting the sentiments of women in West Bengal” by his taunt of “Didi o Didi!” for Mamata during the 2021 polls. “If Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified for his comments as per the law, why shouldn’t the same happen for PM Modi and Suvendu Adhikari (Leader of Opposition)?”

In the wake of the Congress’s spectacular win in Karnataka, a further warmth in the Mamata-Congress relations is being seen now.

A senior TMC leader said, “Our key concern is the minority votes, which was solely garnered by our party in the 2021 polls. If this vote bank shifts to Congress we will be defeated in many areas. That is the main concern of our leadership. So our shifting stand towards Congress reflects this reality.”

A veteran Congress leader and ex-minister Monoj Chakraborty however alleged, “Mamata Banerjee has no political credibility and cannot be trusted. Her stand always keeps changing. Her party is always opportunistic, power-hungry and corrupt.”