Team News Riveting
Kolkata, February 12
Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee ignored the one-man, one policy campaign launched by her nephew and party General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee and announced to abolish all party posts.
Abhishek Banerjee supporters had pushed for the “One Man, One Post” policy in the party that was vehemently opposed by some of the party’s older guards holding multiple positions within the ruling establishment. In the last few months, especially before the Calcutta Municipal Corporation polls, the rift between Mamata and Abhisekh has widened manifold.
Mamata had rejected most of the candidates in the list prepared by poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s team for the civic body elections. Abhishek’s proximity to Prashant Kishor and his I-Pac, which is reported to be the brain behind the “One Man, One Post” campaign, is a known factor in Bengal politics.
However, Bengal’s most powerful aunt and nephew are now not seeing eye to eye.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chief Mamata Banerjee had convened a crucial meeting that could be decisive for her heir apparent, the Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee, who was appointed party national general secretary soon after the Assembly poll results.
With the Opposition in West Bengal completely in disarray since its rout in the Assembly elections and subsequent by-polls, trouble for the TMC had been from within. The simmering differences between Mamata’s nephew and Party General Secretary Abhishek and most of the old guards in the party has started spilling out in open. Mamata so far has tried to strike a balance between the two.
In private, on Thursday, Abhishek had expressed the desire to step down as the general secretary after the Goa polls on Monday but remain the Lok Sabha MP. Mamata herself has not made any public statement so far to reassure her favourite nephew but has given an overt indication that her nephew was not nice for her now.
Mamata on her way to Uttar Pradesh to assist Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s campaign also fuelled speculation about a crack. When asked if Mamata Banerjee planned to campaign in Goa, she replied, “Someone else is doing it, so she is not going.”
She said she was going to different places with more interest. It was noted as a curious remark and even stranger reference to her nephew Abhishek Banerjee as ‘somebody.’
Setting aside Abhishek’s demand, the TMC Chief preferred to abolish all the party posts and decided to constitute a 20-membered national executive committee to oversee the party functioning.
