On 2 January 1998, the Trinamool Congress received recognition from the Election Commission, along with its own election symbol. Even today, photographs from that period remain in the archives, showing late Ajit Panja, Manishankar Aiyar, late Mukul Roy, Ratan Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee. That was the period when the Trinamool Congress was taking shape as Mamata Banerjee’s own political organisation.
Today, however, the same Election Commission has frozen both the TMC’s party name and its traditional election symbol. The reason is that the party has split into two groups, with both claiming to be the real Trinamool Congress. The Election Commission has therefore frozen the name and symbol for the time being.
I still remember Mukul Roy going to the Election Commission on 17 December with a photograph of the Jora Phool symbol. That photograph had been drawn by Mamata Banerjee herself at the MS Flats, the multi-storeyed residential complex in Delhi, just opposite Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where Mamata used to stay. She had drawn the symbol herself, and Mukul Roy put the photograph inside an envelope, sealed it, attached a letter and submitted it to the Election Commission for the party’s symbol.
Then, in January, after the approval came, the announcement was made.
There is already speculation about what the new symbol will be. There is also speculation over whether Mamata will retain the name Trinamool Congress; the name is supposedly to be Mamata All India Trinamool with a symbol of a football player. All these possibilities are being discussed.
But the central question is much larger: Is this the endgame of the TMC? Does this mean that the Trinamool Congress has come to an end?
The TMC that Mamata Banerjee created was gradually taken by her to a very significant position in Indian politics. The party even joined the NDA. Mamata Banerjee became Railway Minister twice. She was Railway Minister during the Vajpayee government and later again during Manmohan Singh’s UPA-II government. But that entire tradition now appears to have come to an end.
The growth of the TMC was built primarily around its anti-CPM struggle. Mamata Banerjee became the political face of anti-CPM sentiment in Bengal, and eventually she succeeded in removing the CPM from power. In that sense, she was a successful political entrepreneur of Bengal’s discontent. She understood the political dissatisfaction that existed in the state, used that discontent effectively and eventually became Chief Minister.
Several Congress leaders had tried before her. Pranab Mukherjee, Barkat Ghulam Chowdhury, Ashoke Sen, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi and others had attempted to challenge the Left’s dominance. Nobody could succeed in doing what Mamata eventually did. She succeeded in ousting the CPM.
At that time, the BJP was still weak in West Bengal. But Mamata subsequently went with the BJP into the NDA, and even then, her principal political identity remained rooted in anti-CPM politics. When Mamata came to power in 2011, perhaps that was the greatest achievement of her political career. But after that, during the next fifteen years, something else happened. The deterioration of the TMC as an organisation began from within.
When the CPM was in power, many of the Congress’s lumpen elements, subaltern proletariats, mafias and goons had gradually entered the CPM system. When the TMC came to power, many of those same elements moved into the Trinamool Congress.
The ruling syndrome then began to emerge within the TMC as well. Power apparently delivered many things to the party, but beneath the surface an erosion was taking place. Mamata Banerjee herself perhaps could not fully understand the extent of that erosion.
Then Abhishek Banerjee emerged as a youth leader. Initially, the organisation was built around the Yuva structure. Gradually, he moved from being a youth leader to becoming the All India Trinamool Congress general secretary.
But along with this came a dramatic corporatisation of the party.
During the period when the party was in power at Nabanna, there was also an increasing alienation from the people. In district after district, corruption entered the TMC leadership structure. Extortion and syndicate politics became part of the political vocabulary associated with the party.
In some ways, this began to resemble what happened in Bihar when the Lalu regime eventually came to an end.
And that brings us to the central question: Can Mamata Banerjee survive politically?
Mamata is now 75 years old. She remains physically active and is once again planning to revamp the party. She is considering district-wise campaigns and attempts to rebuild the organisation.
But there is an important historical point here. What the Congress could not do, Mamata Banerjee did. She defeated the CPM and removed it from power. At that time, the BJP did not have the organisational capability it has today. The Vajpayee-Advani period was still one of coalition governments, without a clear majority for the BJP.
Then the BJP came to power on its own in 2014. After that, the BJP became much more active in trying to expand into areas where it had traditionally had little or no organisational base. Amit Shah, when he became BJP president, spoke about making the BJP a truly pan-Indian party. For that to happen, the BJP had to expand beyond the Hindi heartland and establish itself in eastern and southern India as well. The party subsequently expanded in the Northeast, including Assam and Tripura. After those successes, the BJP became even more aggressive in West Bengal.
And now, for the first time since 1947, the BJP has come to power in West Bengal. A new political narrative has emerged in Bengal under the leadership of Suvendu Adhikari.
The question now is how long it will take for anti-incumbency against the BJP to emerge. The BJP has only recently come to power. It is still in what can be described as a political honeymoon period. The opposition space is therefore limited at present. But suppose that space begins to open up after five years and anti-incumbency starts developing. Who will then occupy the opposition space?
The TMC’s division is, in one sense, complementary to the BJP’s interests. TMC leaders are saying that this is a BJP conspiracy. They are saying that the BJP is responsible for breaking the party and that the BJP wants to finish the Trinamool Congress. But people are not foolish. People understand that the BJP would naturally want to weaken its political opposition.
But there is also a counter-argument. Of course, the BJP will do what is politically advantageous to the BJP. The BJP will want the opposition to remain weak. But the real question is whether the TMC itself has the organisational immunity to survive once it is out of power. If a party loses power and immediately begins to break apart—first into two factions and then potentially into three—then that raises a much larger question about the party’s internal strength. That cannot simply be described as success.
There is another counterargument as well. If the party’s leaders are trying to survive politically despite allegations of corruption, then the question arises: how many of the party’s MLAs and leaders are themselves compromised by those allegations of corruption? These are the counterarguments that inevitably emerge.
In the Nandigram bypoll, this is a political fiasco for Mamata Banerjee. Mamata had apparently decided on a candidate for the seat. Shunchita Pradhan was the candidate, but at the last moment, today, she withdrew her candidature.
This is not the end of the matter. Today, she met Suvendu Adhikari, which has now become the centre of the issue.
Suvendu Adhikari has said that this is not their responsibility. If her own party is breaking into three or four factions, then that is a sign that the party is being completely shattered. So, this is something that will have to be watched closely.
One thing is clear till now: the tomorrow of the TMC presents a very grim and cloudy picture. At the moment, it is difficult to see the sunlight through those clouds.
