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Journalism of Courage
RENDERING a big blow to the Trinamool Congress’s national ambitions, the party failed to again open its account in Tripura while in Meghalaya, it ended up with only five MLAs.
While the party has been putting time, energy and resources into Tripura, given its large Bengali population, in Meghalaya, it went in as the principal Opposition party after almost all Congress MLAs changed sides to the TMC in 2021.
Earlier, the TMC had seen its high-profile campaign in Goa flop, with the party ending up with a blank in last year’s Assembly elections.
TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee’s remarks after the Northeast results indicated the party’s deflated aspirations. “In the 2024 elections, the TMC will go alone. We will fight with people’s support. I believe those who want to defeat the BJP will certainly vote for the TMC,” she said.
For now, gone was the bravado about emerging as a catalyst for a united Opposition alliance against the BJP-led NDA government. Compounding the TMC’s misery was the massive loss in a bypoll in West Bengal in the Sagardighi seat that was considered the party’s stronghold, to a Congress candidate, backed by the Left.
Party sources admitted that to be in serious contention for national stakes, as other Opposition parties also make a pitch, the TMC needed a creditable performance in another state. The party has been trying for this breakthrough since it swept back to power in West Bengal in the 2021 Assembly elections. Its success in holding off a BJP threat had given it the confidence to venture out, with Mamata Banerjee’s virtual No. 2 and nephew Abhishek taking the lead.
Promoted to national general secretary and tasked with the national expansion, Abhishek campaigned extensively in all the elections where the TMC has now come a cropper — Goa, Meghalaya and Tripura.
In Tripura, the party’s vote share (0.88%) was less than for NOTA (1.36%). TMC leaders admitted surprise as in the 2021 local elections in Tripura, the party had got 17 per cent of the votes. In Meghalaya, the party got 5 seats and 13.7 per cent of the votes, despite having gone up from 0 to 12 MLAs after the defections to it from the Congress.
Waiting to turn the knife in, Mamata’s bete noire and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the TMC should even lose its national party status now following its poll debacles, and tweeted to the Election Commission to do so. “The TMC is simply the most corrupt regional party,” tweeted the BJP leader.
Senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said the TMC had no moral authority left to talk about national politics. “The party which cannot offer good governance in Bengal should refrain from showing too much ambition. When its leaders are in jail and when its government cannot provide dearness allowance to its employees, the party is bound to get defeated in elections,” said Chakraborty.
Congress MP and the party’s state unit president, Adhir Chowdhury, for whom the Sagardighi bypoll result was a personal win, said the TMC’s poor performance was not surprising. “There is no place for corruption in society. The writing is on the wall,” said Chowdhury.
The TMC countered this, while accusing Adhikari of spreading lies. TMC state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said: “The party’s national ambitions have actually been strengthened. In Meghalaya, we have more than 10 per cent votes, and hence we have another state in our kitty.”
Majumdar added: “Suvendu Adhikari perhaps does not know the criteria to become a national party. The BSP, Samajwadi Party and CPI enjoy the status of national parties when they don’t even have an elected government in any part of the country (on the basis of their vote shares in several states). Adhikari is just trying to gain false political mileage.”
About any impact on Abhishek Banerjee, Majumdar said: “We are only taking positives from this result. Our party has gone beyond Bengal and won seats in Meghalaya. This is good considering we only recently went to other states.”
However, in private, party leaders expressed apprehension that the TMC could be losing out due to the corruption cloud hanging over its leaders. Its leaders are named in multiple scams, with several under arrest after public seizures of cash, and this could be shaping public opinion, said sources.
“The party has no credibility,” BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said. “From the teachers’ recuitment scam to coal scam and cattle smuggling cases, to failure to provide DA to government employees, there is corruption everywhere… Does the TMC have the moral right to seek votes in other states?… In days to come, the party will be rejected in Bengal as well.”
