After the frenetic heat and dust of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, four assembly constituencies in West Bengal will vote in the bypoll on 10 July. One of these seats, Maniktala in north Kolkata, is drawing considerable attention. Why? Because the Trinamool Congress’ choice of candidate has brought to fore the subterranean sparring for control of the party between founder Mamata Banerjee and nephew Abhishek to whom she is in no hurry to hand over the party reins.
Mamata has nominated Supti Pande, the wife of Sadhan Pande and Mamata’s classmate in college back in the 1970s. Mamata’s fondness for Sadhan, the consumer affairs minister and eight-time MLA whose death in February 2022 necessitated the bypoll, is well known. Abhishek, on the other hand, was apparently keen on fielding Sadhan and Supti’s daughter Shreya, in her late 30s, socially visible and often seen campaigning by her father’s side in the past. But the aunt won the argument and the nephew was somewhat miffed, insiders suggest. This tussle has sparked a bit of a Pande family feud: will the daughter campaign for the mother?
This ‘sparring’ may have also sparked Abhishek’s recent decision to take a “short hiatus from the organisation”, although he said the break is due to “pressing medical reasons”. That could be accurate as he has a history of an eye problem that requires frequent attention. But a ‘hiatus’, in my book, merits an evaluation of the importance of being Abhishek Banerjee in West Bengal’s political future.
The ‘Yuva’ face
Abhishek Banerjee, the boy who could be spotted playing cricket in half-pants in the dusty yard outside Mamata’s house in Harish Mukherjee Street in the late 1990s, made a dramatic entry in politics in 2011. After vanquishing the Left Front, Mamata formed a new party organisation for Abhishek to head: the Trinamool Yuva.
That immediately put Suvendu Adhikari’s back up: he was, at the time, the big daddy in Trinamool Youth Congress whose mandate was similar to that of Trinamool Yuva. Senior leaders tried to defend the move, saying the Youth Congress would focus on rural youth while Yuva would mobilise the urban youth. But eventually, the two entities were merged and Abhishek became its sole head. Suvendu was left fuming until he was recalled by Mamata from Parliament, where both Abhishek and he were MPs, and made a minister.
The next time Abhishek made a political splash was in 2016, when he skipped Mamata Banerjee’s second swearing-in as chief minister. But things began to change in 2019 when, after the TMC’s shock performance in the Lok Sabha polls — TMC 22, BJP 18 — he roped in Prashant Kishor. Mamata had reservations against PK’s new-fangled strategies but Abhishek won the day. The rest, as they say, is history.
PK wove his magic, turning TMC from an unwieldy one-woman venture into a sleek, sinewy corporate-style, social-media savvy entity that pulled off a spectacular win in 2021. A senior TMC leader told me then that “without PK and IPAC, we would have been dead meat” against the marauding BJP.
On 2 May 2021, when Mamata held a press conference to mark the TMC’s stunning victory—215 out of 294 seats against BJP’s 77—there were two people standing beside her: Abhishek and PK. Abhishek had arrived. One month later, Mamata named him the TMC’s national general secretary.
Personal victories
Since then, Abhishek has been trying to consolidate his hold and Mamata seeking to retain hers; not surprisingly, the path has been rocky for both. Early on, Abhishek proposed two strategies to revamp the party: ‘one-man-one-post’ and an age bar for candidates seeking to fight elections. The two policies were viewed as Abhishek’s bid to weed out the old and bring in the new. And they were not welcome. Mamata had to step in to soothe ruffled feathers of senior party leaders who had been with her since 1998 when she founded the party; she swiftly shot nephew Abhishek’s proposals down.
But Abhishek did not throw in the towel. Before panchayat elections last July, he held a march from north to south Bengal – not walking, Rahul Gandhi-style, but travelling in a van (some said with 5-star air-conditioned comfort); the march paid off, first in the panchayat and then in Lok Sabha polls. Later last year, he headed to Delhi to demand from the Centre money owed to West Bengal on account of MNREGA and housing and then went on a dharna outside Raj Bhavan in Kolkata. That too paid rich dividends in the Lok Sabha polls.
The results were a personal feather in Abhishek’s cap. He had personally recommended at least 10 of the 42 candidates. Of those 10, Abhishek struck gold with 7 wins, including former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, who defeated Mamata’s bete noire, Congressman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Remember, all this was in the shadow of ED and CBI investigations into his alleged involvement in a coal scam, a sand smuggling scam, a cow smuggling scam, and the job recruitment scam. He has been repeatedly summoned and questioned by the ED over the last few years. Even his wife, sister-in-law, father-in-law, mother, father, and office staff have faced questioning. So far, it’s all come to nought.
So, what lies ahead for the ‘bhaipo’ – Bengali for nephew — as he is affectionately called by loyalists and in denigration by the BJP? With a 7-lakh victory margin, the highest in the state—though tainted by allegations of rigging—Abhishek is perhaps as ready as he will ever be to step out of his aunt’s shadow.
There will surely be friction between them in future and between the ‘dynast’ and senior TMC leaders. And the ED will remain a Damocles sword. But his biggest test will be the 2026 assembly elections. Pass that and he will have staked an unquestionable claim to a place in Bengal’s foreseeable political future.
PS: A photo circulating in a Facebook TMC fan club shows Mamata Banerjee holding a 7-8-year-old child in her arms. The general reaction is that it’s a photo of Abhishek on Mamata’s lap. I sought a verification. Abhishek says he is not the child in the photo.
Monideepa Banerjie is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)