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HomePoliticsMamata vs BJP-Left-Congress in Bengal? After Suvendu's praise for Biman Bose, TMC...

Mamata vs BJP-Left-Congress in Bengal? After Suvendu’s praise for Biman Bose, TMC certainly thinks so

BJP leader's praise for the Left leader has set political circles buzzing, sparking speculation of a BJP and Left-Congress combine alliance in the state gearing up for panchayat polls.

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Kolkata: While addressing media persons last week, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Nandigram Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Suvendu Adhikari had rare words of praise for Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

Talking about the Saradha chit fund scam outside the Bengal Legislative Assembly, Adhikari said: “I was shocked to see Biman Bose’s name in the letter by (Saradha Group chairman) Sudipta Sen. Biman da to date washes his own clothes and stays in the party office. Trinamool Congress is playing dirty politics.” 

He added that people in West Bengal should reject the TMC and its supremo Mamata Banerjee.

“BJP is the only party Bengal has not tasted. I urge the people to reject the TMC and support people’s mahajot (people’s alliance),” he told the media. 

Adhikari’s sudden and seemingly uncharacteristic words of praise for the Left leader, coming as it does as the state gears up for panchayat polls, has set the political circles in West Bengal abuzz, sparking the speculation of a possible alliance between the BJP and the Left-Congress combine.  

TMC leader Kunal Ghosh certainly seems to think this is the case. Speaking to ThePrint, he called Adhikari’s statement “opportunistic”. 

“Trinamool is already a representation of the people’s coalition. In fact, (former President of India) Pranab Mukherjee had once said that the TMC is an inherited coalition,” Ghosh said“We have people from every walk of life supporting us. Certain parties with no ideology are trying to get together in an unholy alliance and defeat the TMC. BJP-CPI(M) and Congress will fight together in the Panchayat polls, but they will not be able to defeat us.” 

But Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Bose has dismissed the notion.

“I don’t want to respond to what Suvendu Adhikari said,” he said to ThePrint. “The Left will never have any understanding with either the TMC or the BJP in any political fight.”


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TMC vs BJP vs Left-Congress or Trinamool vs the rest

Adhikari’s praise of Bose comes at a time when the state is gearing up for the panchayat elections, seen by many as the litmus test for the 2024 general election.

In the first major setback since the TMC’s 2021 landslide victory in the state, the CPI(M)-backed Congress candidate Bayron Biswas defeated TMC’s Debashish Banerjee by a margin of 22,980 votes in the Sagardighi bypoll held on 2 March. 

Sagardighi, a major TMC stronghold, has a 64 per cent minority vote share, which the Trinamool failed to capture.

This is also happening when the TMC is swamped with a number of corruption cases, such as the alleged cash-for-job, cattle smuggling, and coal pilferage scams, and major high-profile arrests, including former TMC minister Partha Chatterjee.   

The party, meanwhile, is also engaged in a tug-of-war with the BJP-led central government over MGNREGA funds. While addressing a public rally in Singur last week, TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: “Earlier, under the CPI(M) regime, the roads were so bad, you could make a fishpond inside the craters. After we came to power, we built 1 lakh km of roads in the state”.

She added: “The central government has not given us a single penny, they have even stopped the 100-day work payment. It could be that they are jealous of our efficiency, or they are playing politics”. 

For the TMC, stakes are high at the panchayat elections — Banerjee is currently holding district-wise meetings every week to take stock of the party on-ground, ThePrint has learnt. 

Despite this, however, political analysts ThePrint spoke to don’t attach too much importance to Adhikari’s words. 

Sourjya Bhowmick, the author of Gangster State: The Rise and Fall of the CPI(M) in Bengal, told ThePrint that while such an understanding could exist at the grassroots level, senior state leaderships don’t usually meddle too much with panchayat polls. 

Such an understanding at the panchayat level could be “people-driven, unofficial, informal because of disenchantment of people”, he said.

“In recent times, we have seen how the BJP and Left have fought cooperative bank polls together. For rural polls, such understanding between opposition parties could be seen where the people themselves wanted to support the BJP and the Left to keep away the TMC. But such an alliance for state polls or Lok Sabha is impossible as the parties are ideologically very different,” he said.   

According to Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, author of Mission Bengal: A Saffron Experiment, the likely political equation in the state will be Left-Congress versus the BJP versus the TMC.

“BJP is saying this to get votes from the Left-Congress camp, as a split opposition vote would be perilous for them. BJP repeatedly branded TMC worse than the Left ahead of the 2021 elections also to ensure they get the anti-TMC votes,” he told ThePrint. The praise for Biman Bose, he says, is intended for traditional Left voters, not the leadership. 

“We must keep in mind that BJP grew with traditional Left votes. Any revival of the Left would be damaging for the BJP in Hindu areas and the TMC in Muslim areas,” he said. 

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)


Also Read: Mamata-Naveen set to meet, TMC dismisses prospect of ‘third front, talks with Congress’


 

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