Congress walks tightrope in Bengal as it fights TMC for minority votes

The inherent contradiction in the Congress about its relations with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress became glaring after photographs of the party's national president Mallikarjun Kharge smeared with black ink appeared in Kolkata on Sunday (May 19).

The pictures were on banners put up by the Congress in front of its state headquarters. Unidentified perpetrators also wrote 'TMC dalal' (TMC’s agent) on the banners carrying pictures of the party's octogenarian president.

Kharge’s snub at Chowdhury

This came a day after Kharge snubbed state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for his remark that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee's claim of allegiance to the INDIA bloc could not be trusted and that she might join hands with the BJP after the elections.

After the matter came to light, Congress workers quickly removed the ink from the pictures and purged them with milk. But the cleansing act failed to hide the serious differences that have cropped up between the Congress high command and its state unit over its likely post-poll equation with the TMC.

Unfazed by the party president’s rebuke, Chowdhury on Sunday (May 19) reiterated that the state Congress would continue its fight against the TMC to safeguard the party’s interest in Bengal.

“I cannot speak in favour of the woman who wants to finish me and my party politically in Bengal. There is nothing personal in it. This fight is of a Congress soldier to protect the party. It is an ethical battle," he insisted, without naming Banerjee.

Mamata-Adhir feud

The political rivalry between Banerjee and Chowdhury is legendary in Bengal politics and it dates back to the 1990s when both the fiery leaders were rising stars in the Congress.

Chowdhury shot to fame winning the Nabagram assembly seat he had contested from jail in 1996. He was behind bars in connection with the murder of a CPI(M) worker.

That was also the beginning of his rivalry with Banerjee, who had vehemently opposed Chowdhury’s Congress nomination.

This time Chowdhury’s opposition to Mamata and her party has more to do with politics than personal animosity.

The TMC supremo in the run-up to the elections haughtily announced that her party would go solo in West Bengal and even professed that the Congress might not even win 40 seats. That was in February this year, when the Congress high command in New Delhi was still trying to persuade her to stitch an alliance.

What has made TMC jittery?

Besides giving the alliance a snub, she even skipped Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra that passed through Bengal, and crucial meetings of the INDIA bloc. Her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee too maintained a distance from the Congress-led alliance.

In the meantime, the Congress sealed the deal with the CPI (M)-led Left Front in the state deciding to contest 12 seats. As per the deal, the Left Front is contesting 30 of the state’s 42 parliamentary seats.

After the initial phases of polling, TMC strategists got jittery over the minority votes, the mainstay of the party’s electoral support base in Bengal for over a decade. Muslims constitute more than 30 per cent of the electorate in about 15 parliamentary seats.

The Congress-Left alliance has been playing spoilsport to the TMC in these seats by chipping away with sizeable portions of minority votes, party insiders say, throwing light on the thought process that led to the party’s mid-course correction.

Mamata’s U-turn

Taking a U-turn from her earlier dismissive approach to the India bloc, the TMC supremo addressing an election rally last Wednesday (May 15) claimed that her party would provide “outside support” to the Congress-led alliance to form the government. It was a noteworthy change from her earlier assessment that the Congress would not win 40 seats.

A day later she reiterated that the TMC was very much a part of the INDIA bloc, maintaining that she helped in its formation and even named it.

By harping that she and her party is very much a part of the bloc, Mamata is trying to put to rest any misgivings, particularly among minority voters, about her commitment to the anti-BJP grouping.

To hammer in her points, she even claimed that the Congress unit of West Bengal and the Left parties had tacit understandings with the BJP. She has been appealing to the people not to vote for the Congress-Left alliance in Bengal.

Fight for Muslim votes

As a counter to her strategy to consolidate anti-BJP votes in her party’s favour, Chowdhury is pushing the narrative that the TMC supremo’s anti-BJP plank is not trustworthy.

“She cannot be trusted because she ditched the alliance,” he said, adding that she could even go to the BJP, questioning her sincerity to fight the saffron party.

“She is trying to confuse voters by claiming that her party is part of the INDIA alliance whereas the Pradesh Congress and the Left Front are not its part. She is making such an absurd statement because Muslims’ votes are swinging towards the Left-Congress alliance,” he further went on to add.

Muslim votes are at the core of the posturing by the two arch-rivals Mamata and Chowdhury because their parties rely heavily on minorities for their electoral fortunes.

The Congress could maintain some electoral presence in Bengal politics despite not being in power for several decades by holding on to minority votes in the Muslim-dominated districts of Murshidabad, Malda, and North Dinajpur. But after the ascent of the TMC, the Congress started losing ground even in these minority pockets. It failed to win a single seat in the last assembly elections in 2021.

It needs to erode the TMC’s minority vote base to regain some of its lost ground. The party is sensing some drift in minority votes away from the TMC this time, giving it some hope for revival.

‘Chowdhury thinking of long-term’

“Adhirda (the suffix da is short for dada, which means elder brother in Bengali) is thinking about the long-term future of the party in Bengal,” said a senior state Congress leader who preferred to remain anonymous.

The party high command in New Delhi on the other hand has its own compulsions to cosy up with the TMC for the immediate national interest, he added.

Caught between the conflicting priorities, the Congress appears to be a divided house on how to deal with Mamata and her party. Its dilemma has been further compounded because Chowdhury, the state Congress chief, is not good at walking a tightrope.