Mamata Banerjee’s anti-Left take casts shadow on INDIA bloc
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, January 23
All-India Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s public expression of discomfort with the Left Front is casting a shadow on the health of an already flailing opposition INDIA bloc.
“I suggested the name INDIA during the meeting of the opposition parties but whenever I attend the meeting, I see the Left trying to control it. This is unacceptable. I can’t agree with those I have fought for 34 years,” Mamata said at an interfaith rally in Kolkata on Monday just when the Ram Temple was being consecrated in Ayodhya.
Mamata’s outburst against the Left is nothing new. What’s new is the threat it poses to the INDIA alliance, in which the TMC shares an uncomfortable space with the CPM, CPI and other Left partners. The Congress’ proximity to CPM in Bengal is not to Mamata’s liking, especially with West Bengal Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s routine public swipes at her.
Mamata’s latest comments have led to consternation in the Congress, which feels she may be hardening her stand even though it is well known that she quit the Congress to form the TMC in 1998 only because she felt the Congress was going soft on the Left in Bengal.
Mamata’s ideological position against the CPM has been consistent unlike that of the Congress in respect of the Left. Mamata has now asserted she cannot work where the Left is dominant. Mamata yesterday said she had endured enough insults in INDIA meetings, which “the Left controls.”
At the heart of the tension is INDIA’s seat-sharing impasse in Bengal which has 42 Lok Sabha segments. Mamata recently said the party would fight all 42. The TMC is willing to give Congress the two seats it holds — Berhampur and Maladah South. But the Congress wants at least six. Besides, the TMC is unlikely to have any truck with the CPM in Bengal with Mamata on Tuesday blaming the Congress for delaying seat-sharing talks in the INDIA bloc.
TMC sources cite LS poll data to make their point of being the most suited to defeat the BJP in Bengal. Mamata’s success in the 2014 LS polls in the state reduced Left from 15 to two seats and Congress from six to four. In 2019, the Congress fell further to two seats, the Left did not win any.
