News Analysis Dissent within the rank and file of the Trinamool Congress emerged within months of the party coming to power in the watershed Assembly elections in 2011.
The action taken against Trinamool Congress MLA Shikha Mitra —suspending her from the party, hours after she spoke to journalists on the recent ruckus in the West Bengal Assembly, despite instructions from the party not to speak to the press —was striking both in its speed and severity, particularly as it came in the wake of more serious transgressions from senior leaders of the party going unpunished.
Her comment that the violence in the Assembly was condemnable regardless of which party was involved earned her a suspension at a time when Cabinet Minister Rabindranath Bhattacharya’s allegations of “extortion” under the ‘auspices’ of the Trinamool Congress that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was aware of and the Government Chief Whip Shovandeb Chattopadhyay’s threats to quit the party have not earned them a public censure so far. It is another matter that Jadavpur MP Kabir Suman has for nearly three years defied the party line on several issues without facing any disciplinary action.
Ms. Mitra’s direct criticism of Chief Minister’s Mamata Banerjee’s style of running her government in July this year failed to precipitate any action against her then. Was it her decision to file a defamation suit against the party’s secretary general and State Minister for Industries Partha Chatterjee last month that did her in?
Or is Ms. Mitra’s suspension intended to be a deterrent at a time when an atmosphere of dissent hangs over the party?
Mr. Bhattacharya’s rebellion followed a major Cabinet reshuffle on November 21 in which eight new faces were inducted, one Minister dropped and the portfolios of eight Ministers shuffled.
Mr. Bhattacharya, who is a three-time MLA from Singur himself, was shifted from the Agriculture Department to Statistics and Programme Implementation. He responded by refusing to attend his new office and then raised the stakes by levelling allegations of extortion by party workers in Singur, admitting that it occurred “under my very nose.”
His remarks brought to the fore a split in the ranks within the Trinamool Congress in Singur showing the newly-appointed Minister of State for Agriculture and MLA from neighbouring Haripal, Becharam Manna, in very poor light. The public anger in Singur — the epicentre of Ms. Banerjee’s movement against land acquisition — was evident when Mr. Manna faced protests from villagers.
But far more damaging was Mr. Bhattacharya’s assertion that Ms. Banerjee was aware of the ongoing nefarious activities.
Matters in Singur were far from resolved when the focus shifted to Kolkata. This time Mr. Chattopadhyay — a senior trade union leader who has already been sidelined from the party’s labour wing — threatened to quit the party.
Mr. Chattopadhyay felt so humiliated when he was heckled by members of the party’s student wing the Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad that he publicly said, “I will reconsider my stay in the party if it fails to take action on the matter.”
His remarks, made a week before the Winter Session of the State Assembly, spurred rumours that he was likely to lose the post of the Government Chief Whip, but again, he is yet to face disciplinary action.
Dissent within the rank and file of the Trinamool Congress emerged within months of the party coming to power in the watershed Assembly elections in 2011. But recent events are certainly a cause for alarm for the party because this time it is senior leaders and those who have been with the party since its inception have joined the ranks of the discontented.
Keywords: West Bengal Assembly, Trinamool Congress, proliferation of chit funds, parliamentary democracy
Mamata style of function is a classic case study of how a charisma becomes a liability when it disintegrates into hero worship and the leader cannot bring life and purpose to which one is committed. Mamata so far has shown plenty of showmanship without wisdom so essential for an inspirational transformation leadership. Bengalis thought Mamata as knight on a white horse whose heroic efforts for prosperity, but now in nightmare of a political leadership without any clarity. A paper, "Falling over Ourselves to Follow the Leader", published recently by the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies details how business students generated solutions for a variety of challenges. Teams with charismatic qualities tended to experience the highest conflicts with weaker decisions. Hope for some good arising from the chaos like a well-known quote “History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion”.
The problems within the Trinamool Congress are because Ms
Bandhopaddhay, in her haste to be the Chief Minister, inducted all and
sundry in her party. There are more ex CPI(M) cadres in the ranks of
the AITMC than there are actual party believers in the party ideology,
i.e. if there is any ideology to speak of. The AITMC's only plank was
stringent anti CPI(m)ism, assuming that it is even an ism, and, now
even that has been diluted.
Moreover, Ms Bandhopaddhay has spent her entire political life sitting
in the opposition benches. Even when her party was in power at the
Center, and, she a Minister of State in the govt, she organised a sit
in demonstration in front of the Indian Parliament. A demonstration
against the policies of the govt in which she was then a minister.
Now that she is in the govt, rather, now that she is The Government,
she is yet to take off her Opposition hat. Juggling three hats, the
Party supremo hat, The Govt hat and the Opposition to the Govt hat can
not be that easy.
If any one can pull this off, it is Ms Bandhopadhay.
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