The departure of one of Congress’ four MPs, Mausam Benazir Noor, elected from Malda-North in central Bengal, has caused major ripples in the Congress. Many party workers and leaders now ask if the party will be able to keep the rest of the flock – three MPs and two dozen MLAs – together before the Lok Sabha polls given that the Trinamool Congress has already poached about one-and-a-half dozen of Congress MLAs since 2016.
Ms. Noor, the niece of legendary Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury, joined TMC on Monday and said that she “trusts Mamata Banerjee in her fight against communalism.” Her departure has dented the average Congress worker’s confidence.
“Congress’ national leaders and possible coalition partners shared the stage with Mamata Banerjee about a week back. We never thought she would poach from the Congress after that January 19 rally but she did. It indicates how ruthless she is,” said one of Congress MLAs from Malda.
MLAs from two Assembly segments under Malda-North Lok Sabha constituency joined the TMC over the last few months. One of them, Samar Mukherjee, was with the Congress; the other, Dipali Biswas, belonged to the CPI-M. “It had shaken the confidence of Noor,” said the MLA. Ms Noor was also the Malda district president of the Congress.
One of the other factors for Ms Noor’s leaving the party is the BJP’s growth in parts of her constituency. The BJP had won six of Malda district’s 38 Zilla Parishad seats in the three-tier panchayat poll last year despite large scale violence. While the TMC’s seats went up from six (in 2013) to 30 (2018), the BJPs’ jumped from naught to six. Ms. Noor read the writing on the wall and left the party that was never defeated in Malda since 1980.
“Huge turnout in Amit Shah’s meeting in her constituency earlier the month also disturbed her,” the MLA, known for his proximity to Ms Noor, said. Congress president Somendra Nath Mitra said that Ms Noor’s desertion will not affect the Congress’ poll prospects in anyway, indicating that the nephew of Ghani Khan Choudhury, Isha Khan Choudhury will be their candidate in Malda-North. If so, then Malda North will witness a fight between two cousins – Mausam Noor from TMC and Isha Khan from Congress – and the seat is likely to stay with the family.
