for opposition unity

With the dust settling in a bitter fight west bengal assembly elections, discussions have been moved Trinamool Congress (TMC) entered other states, attacked it Congress The question of leadership, and opposition unity. An immediate question is whether Congress and TMC can declare a ceasefire and work together to achieve opposition unity. Confidence between Congress and TMC This has come to the fore several times over the past few months, especially when the TMC leadership was Reaching Voters in Goa or Meeting prominent leaders of other political parties like Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena.

Comment | Reality check of opposition unity project

The differences between the two parties have their roots in the politics of West Bengal. The Congress and TMC have a complicated relationship in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee founded a new party in 1998 as she felt that the Congress was not serious enough to take on the Left parties. However, the two parties came together in an alliance to end the 34-year-old CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in 2011, with Ms Banerjee taking over as chief minister. The TMC supported the UPA-II government, and its leaders were part of the Union Council of Ministers. Therefore, Ms Banerjee’s recent remark that the UPA is “dead” was enough to elicit a strong reaction from the Congress leadership.

This restlessness is also due to differences between Ms Banerjee and West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. With the rise of TMC, the position of Congress in West Bengal politics gradually diminished. West Bengal is a unique case when the victor took control of everything and the opposition parties are struggling to manage a civic body or gram panchayat even in the remotest corners of the state.

The shrinking opposition space resulted in regular defections of Congress leaders to the TMC since 2011. This has forced the Grand Old Party to form an alliance with the Left.

It is not that Congress and TMC have not tried to reach out to each other. After the assembly elections, the Congress tried to give an olive branch to the TMC by not fielding a candidate against Ms. Banerjee when she contested from Bhawanipore. The TMC helped nominate Congress leaders like Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Pradip Bhattacharya to the Rajya Sabha. But despite all these efforts, no agreement has been reached between the two parties in the state in the last 10 years.

TMC cannot dismiss Congress as the binding force of all opposition parties. If TMC tries to capture the dominant opposition’s place on the national stage, it is going to help the BJP. The TMC may have defeated the BJP’s juggernaut in West Bengal, but its support base is mainly made up of Bengali speakers.

In West Bengal, the Congress should also do more at the grassroots level to bring to the fore senior leaders who are now in political isolation. It needs to rejuvenate its workers in old bastions instead of getting into regular tussles with the TMC. To take on the BJP in 2024, both the parties will have to first mend their lines in the state. Municipal elections provide an opportunity for this. By allowing Congress candidates to contest these elections and not engineer defections, TMC can set the record straight. The TMC’s political dominance in West Bengal at this time can be compared to the CPI(M)-led Left Front, when it was at its political peak. Attempts by the ruling party to capture every inch of political space by using fear and coercion may not bode well for the state and may hamper the chances of opposition unity for the 2024 general elections.

Shivsahaya.s@thehindu.co.in