State chief removed but no replacement: Trinamool Congress latest Tripura trouble tells story of party

In 1999, he first moved to the TMC on its debut in the state, but returned to the Congress after it failed to take off. In 2008, he won from Sonamura as a Congress MLA.

When delimitation and consequent changes caused him to lose the seat in 2013, Bhowmik left the Congress and formed the Tripura Pragatisheel Grameen Congress, blaming the Congress leadership for his defeat and warning that it could never come to power in the state.

By July 2021, Bhowmik was in the TMC.

The TMC announced his removal as Tripura president on August 24, effective immediately, sharing no reason for it.

TMC general secretary and in-charge of Tripura Rajib Banerjee later told the media that Bhowmik was dropped due to poor performance, and that a review showing the party had hit “rock bottom” in the bypolls had reflected badly on Bhowmik. “We realised that we had failed to expand the party organisation as much as we should have. We should have reached the grass-root level in a bigger way. Those whom we trusted and reposed responsibility in, failed,” Banerjee said, adding that they had arrived at the decision to remove Bhowmik after long discussions with leaders in Agartala and Kolkata.

Bhowmik, however, claims no one in the party discussed anything with him, or intimated him about the removal.

Banerjee incidentally seemed to contradict himself, saying they were looking to appoint a “worthy, efficient, promising” leader with “foresight”, and adding that Bhowmik had all of the above qualities and was still an asset for the party. Refusing to specify the complaints against Bhowmik, Banerjee said: “Some things can’t be said in the public.”

This seemingly contradictory stand is reflective of the TMC’s limited choices when it comes to Tripura, where it has few local leaders and is yet to find a replacement for Bhowmik. It was noted that one senior leader, former Prakash Das, was not present when the announcement of Bhowmik’s removal was made.

Party leaders admit that the defection of Baptu Chakraborty just recently also shows that more than Bhowmik, the problem might lie with how the TMC is running the state unit.

“The party performed very well in the civic body polls last year and emerged as the main contender to the BJP. But for the next five months, there was hardly any party activity here, with the high command busy with other states. Their activities resumed only before the Assembly by-elections, and naturally, the prospects plummeted,” a TMC leader said.

Another TMC leader pointed out that the party was yet to expand its organisational base till the booth level, despite TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s claims of finishing this by December.

Other leaders are apprehensive of the impact of the recent Enforcement Department action in West Bengal, with alleged riches tumbling out of closets of senior TMC leader Partha Chatterjee. Several fear that more TMC leaders might be on their way to other parties.

Observers believe the TMC that had real prospects in Tripura, with its large Bengali-speaking population, has squandered them by taking the state lightly due to its smaller geographical size compared to West Bengal.

Recently, Banerjee didn’t endear himself to many residents when he compared Tripura to “a few districts of West Bengal” in size, arguing that the party would have no trouble establishing itself in the state ahead of the 2023 elections.