Mamata’s ‘outside support’ push has many meanings. Does she want INDIA to pick TMC over Left?

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee | ANI

Mamata Banerjee has done a spectacular volte face. One fine day, the three-term chief minister of West Bengal with a wealth of political experience quite inexplicably and out of the blue said she would give “outside support” to the INDIA coalition, which she is certain will come to power after 4 June. And just 24 hours later, she took an absolute U-turn. She said that she helped birth the INDIA coalition, christened it and is very much part of it. It was a somersault that would be the envy of Olympic-gold-winning gymnast Nadia Comăneci.

Just as you cannot unring a bell or unsee something, words, once spoken, can never be taken back. And Mamata’s words have triggered political tremors that could acquire earthquake-like proportions after 4 June when it is time to form a government. The worst thing is, try as it might to contain the fallout, the biggest sufferer of political damage from her words is her own party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

“BJP is claiming that it will win 400 seats, but people are saying it will not happen. The entire country has understood that the BJP is a party full of thieves,” she said at a poll rally in West Bengal’s Chinsurah Wednesday, concluding that her party “will support the INDIA bloc from outside to form a government at the Centre.”

The many meanings of ‘outside support’

Here is how that one line is being viewed, the views listed in random order.

1. After cold-shouldering it for months, Mamata wants INDIA’s attention, perhaps an invitation to lead it. Both Mamata and her party TMC have a long-cherished dream: Didi for Prime Minister. The slogan has been muted lately but now could be her best chance to bid for it and she is not shying away. She had struck a discordant ekla chalo(walk alone) note this January and sealed her distance from INDIA in February by saying Congress “would not get 40 seats”. INDIA disappeared from her speeches, resurfacing only recently.
2. Advance bargaining is how others view her move; bargaining with INDIA to pick TMC over theLeft and a certain Congress leader from West Bengal, should INDIA reach a position to form cabinet. Mamata, in a recent election rally, confidently predicted 315 seats for INDIA and a paltry 195 for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Given state politics, she cannot have TMC ministers sharing cabinet space with a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) minister or her bete noire, Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. How can they share the same frame with the very people in Delhi who are enemies in the state?
3. The ‘saving-grace’ view is this: Mamata really had the 2026 assembly election in the state in the back of her mind when she said what she did. In that election, the CPI-M and the Congress are as dangerous rivals as the BJP. So, besides anti-incumbency, she has to pad up against the possibility of the BJP increasing its 2021 tally of 77 MLAs. And against a Congress-aided Left resurgence. The two parties may improve their vote share this election and in 2026.
4. The most damaging interpretation of her comment has come from Left and Congress leaders – not central leaders but state ones. They claim Mamata’s outside support comment was a signal to the BJP that she is not fully with INDIA and perhaps is open to offering outside support to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) if needed. Impossible, say TMC insiders. The party will disintegrate if that happens and no question this is a politically motivated view, the result of bitter hostility between the TMC and the Congress-Left axis.

For ammunition, they are using Mamata’s ties with the BJP at the turn of the century when she joined the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government as a minister. In 2009, after the Left withdrew support, she switched to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) but briefly. Ditto, Congress ties for Assembly polls 2011.

Storm in a teacup or more?

‘Setting’ is another Left-Congress favourite term. It signifies under-the-table deals between the BJP and TMC. And Left-Congress cite many alleged examples of that, including the multiple scams allegedly involving TMC leaders, investigated but no chargesheet filed – Saradha, Narada, jobs scam, coal scam, cattle smuggling, to name a few. Not to mention abstention in the vice-president vote, which enabled Jagdeep Dhankar’s victory over Margaret Alva.

BJP has gone to town on the issue too. Its basic thrust: TMC is desperately seeking relevance in national politics but heading for irrelevance in Delhi after 4 June and in Kolkata after the 2026 assembly polls. Some BJP leaders claim the TMC government won’t make it to 2025.

However, more than all these campaigns, TMC should worry about minority voters and how they view her outside support. Minorities are with the TMC but they have also watched Rahul Gandhi march across the country. Their loyalty to the TMC must rest, however peripherally, on TMC’s ties with Congress, at the Centre if not the state. Rahul’s Nyay Yatra in West Bengal was not a flop show. To suddenly have Mamata spring ‘outside support’ must be a surprise.

Luckily, her volte-face has come before any public minority reaction and perhaps just in time for the TMC to dismiss the controversy as a storm in a teacup, a misunderstanding. But can the TMC escape from it unscathed? Can you put toothpaste back into the tube? No, at least not without creating one unholy mess. The last thing INDIA needs, poised as it may be on its closest brush with history. At such a time, it is a shame if mercurial Mamata muddies the waters. For years, she has basked in that adjective, mercurial. Time to put a lid on it if she seriously wants to stem the BJP tide. A long olive branch to INDIA may be in order.

The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)