Torn between the prick of conscience and ground reality, a divided Bengal Pradesh Congress leadership on Friday met the Congress high command with divergent views on whether to ally or not to ally with Mamata Banerjee in the next year’s general elections.
In fear of losing their seats in a communally polarised atmosphere, particularly in districts bordering Bangladesh where the ruling Trinamool Congress has literally usurped the Congress strongholds playing on the BJP-phobia of the minorities, the latter’s MPs like Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury have told Rahul Gandhi that the party should ally with the Trinamool Congress.
“I am in favour of an alliance with the TMC at this juncture when the BJP is fast expanding base. And I have made it clear to the high command. It is not the Trinamool but the BJP which is our bigger enemy now,” said Khan Chowdhury the South Malda MP.
Another senior PCC leader Subhankar Bhattacharya also told Rahul about the invincibility of the Trinamool and time worthiness of a decision to join hands with Mamata Banerjee. “At present we have three options: either to go with the TMC or to go with the left or to go it alone. In the fitness of things Trinamool is the better option I said. In the present polarised atmosphere the BJP-phobic minorities are collecting behind Mamata Banerjee, so it is good to be with the TMC.”
“We could also have opted for the left but that will not be agood option because they are a decaying force and will be unable to assure us seats," he added Former PCC president and veteran leader Somen Mitra is also known to have told the high command about a “tactical alliance because there isno other way out, though our stand and opinion about the TMC will remain the same.”
However, the other group led by PCC president Adhir Chowdhury, Deepa Dasmunshi and Manoj Chakrabarty has vehemently opposed a pro-Trinamool line.
“I have given my opinon against the TMC because firstly each time we have supported Mamata Banerjee she has tried to eliminate us. There is no guarantee that she will not do that once again. Secondly she has not acknowledged the leadership of Rahul Gandhi or for that matter the UPA led by the Congress. So what is the point in supporting TMC or getting supported by it particularly when it is the question of national politics and the TMC is a regional outfit onlyIJ” Chakrabarty, a former State Minister said.
Deepa Dasmunshi a former Union Minister on the other hand questioned the fruitfulness of an alliance with the TMC saying “there is no guarantee that we will win even with their help or lose without them. So I have given my opinon against an alliance with the TMC.”
The issue of “poaching of Congress MlAs by the Trinamool” too was discussed. After the meeting, Chowdhury said that Rahul Gandhi met each party leader individually and heard their views on how to strengthen the party. “Each party leader, including myself, gave him their point of view on the way forward and for strengthening the party in the state,” he said.
Over the past two years, the Congress has lost nearly 11 of its MlAs to the TMC. Barring Manas Bhunia, who resigned as Congress MlA when he was elected as Rajya Sabha MP from TMC, the defectors didn’t resign as legislators after joining the ruling party.
Four other Congress MlAs, who are currently holding talks with the TMC, are likely to follow suit on July 21, during the mega rally of the ruling party.