Team News Riveting
When Congress announced to appoint Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as party’s Bengal unit chief, a pall of gloom descended on Trinamool Congress (TMC) camp.
For, it shattered Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s plan to give a united fight to the BJP in Bengal. With Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, it would now be a daunting task.
The five-time Lok Sabha MP from Bahrampur, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, is a known Mamata Banerjee-baiter and an ardent advocate of an electoral tie up with the Left in Bengal. As the Bengal Pradesh Congress chief, Chowdhury is sure to up the ante against the Trinamool.
The TMC would not join any alliance in which Left parties would be partners. And under Chowdhury’s command, grand alliances without Left parties cannot take shape. So, the Congress campaign in the ensuing Assembly polls in Bengal is expected to target the Trinamool as well as the BJP.
Chowdhury has been a vocal and stringent critic of Banerjee and has been vociferously attacking her for alleged corruption and misrule.
A three-cornered contest in Bengal would divide the anti-BJP votes between the Trinamool and the Congress with probably Left as its partners. Mamata’s overall strategy for the coming assembly elections is based on consolidated anti-BJP votes.
By choosing Chowdhury to head the party unit in Bengal, the Congress top leadership had also signalled to Mamata Banerjee that it would not concede ground to her. This was sure to infuriate Banerjee, who has been trying to impress upon the Congress leadership to align with her party in Bengal by sending negotiators.
What worried Mamata Banerjee more was to fend stringent attacks from the BJP, Congress and the Left. All the three parties will target her for alleged corruption, mis-governance, political violence, politicisation of the state administration and the police, throttling dissent and democracy and intolerance.
A fall of Trinamool would be a gain for BJP, literally, in the given political situation in Bengal.
