Congress-Trinamool marriage of convenience on the rocks?

Kolkata: West Bengal has a new opposition leader these days. It’s not the CPI(M). It’s the Congress and its leaders like Manas Bhunia, a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet.  “Bhunia plays oppn leader, slams CM” says a headline  in The Times of India.  There’s friction among coalition partners and then there’s all out war. The Congress and Trinamool Congress are coalition partners both in West Bengal and in New Delhi. But you wouldn’t know that to hear their leaders. Mamata Banerjee called the state Congress, the CPI(M)’s B-team, accusing it of colluding with the Communists to destabilise her government. “We are not. Trinamool is the CPI(M)’s B-team,” Congress MP Deepa Das Munshi shot back according to the Ananda Bazar Patrika. “In the Lok Sabha, Trinamool, CPIM and RSP all spoke in one voice on the FDI issue.” [caption id=“attachment_174298” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Trinamool-Congress marriage appears to coming apart at the seams. Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP”]  [/caption] “It’s well-known that the Trinamool-Congress relationship is a marriage of convenience,” says Subrata Hore, an associate professor of political science in Kolkata. That marriage appears to be coming apart at the seams. What’s even worse is both sides are not just leaking stories to the press, they are holding full-fledged rallies and press conferences to pour vitriol on each other. “Us se hum nahin, hum se woh hain (We don’t owe our existence to them, rather, they exist because of us),” Trinamool minister Firad Hakim bluntly told reporters on Thursday. His cabinet colleague, the Congress leader Manas Bhunia, complained at a rally that he had only joined the government “at the instruction of the party. The seeds of doubt in my mind then are appearing to be a reality now.” “Some of those who are spreading canards against the government are also ministers! But they keep mum at cabinet meetings,” sneered Trinmool leader Partha Chatterjee at a press meet on Thursday according to the Bengal Post. So is this marriage of convenience headed for a bitter divorce? Not so fast, says the Ananda Bazar Patrika. A Congress source told the newspaper that while the party has been looking for backup partners in case the Trinamool leaves them in a lurch, it is not keen to add that headache to its plate, at least not before the Uttar Pradesh elections. The AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed told The Telegraph that the high command was trying to calm all sides down. “After all we are alliance partners in the government and any criticism of it would show all of us in a poor light,” he said. Mamata has extended no such courtesy. Instead she forced the high command’s hand with the needless Indira Bhavan controversy. The proposal to set up a museum to honour the revolutionary Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in the building named after Indira Gandhi forced the Congress to react sharply. Insubordination on FDI, Lokpal, pension plans, petrol hikes are one thing. Snubbing Indira Gandhi is another level of humiliation altogether for the grand old party. For state Congress leaders who have been chafing under Mamata’s thumb for a while, the Indira Bhavan controversy was not unwelcome – it forced the High Command to react. But it’s unclear what the state Congress hopes to gain by ratcheting up the rhetoric against its Big Sister in the coalition in Kolkata. The Congress is a shadow of itself in the state. Trinamool leaders have scoffed that Congress MLAs would all lose their deposits if they stood for election without Mamata’s picture behind them, reports the Bengali daily Bartaman. In more bad news for the state Congress, the niece of its late heavyweight ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury joined the Trinamool on Thursday and was promptly appointed general secretary. Subrata Hore says what’s playing out in West Bengal is probably the reaction to what is happening at the Centre. Though Trinamool leaders have publicly said their flirtation with the NDA was a “mistake” that they will never repeat, Mamata is losing no opportunity to make it clear that she is her own person. The fact that the financial package she got from the Centre has not been as much as she hoped, has not improved her mood. As the UPA government looks more beleagured, Mamata is clearly keen to make sure she is not too closely identified with it. But her intransigence is irritating the UPA. “I think there is some pressure on the State Congress to annoy her at home, to apply some counter pressure,” says Hore. West Bengal has a long history of maverick Congress leaders including Subhas Chandra Bose, leaders who created Bengal plank that marched to a slightly different tune than the High Command. Mamata Banerjee is just the latest in that long line. But she is the most successful because she managed to come out of the Congress and then make the mother party dance to her tune. The problem for her now is her own party. The sniping at the top is emboldening the cadres on the bottom rung. While her diktat forces her ministers to try and work together, the lower levels of the party are another matter. Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, the students wing, allegedly beat up the principal of Raiganj College on Thursday in a fight over campus elections with the Congress’ Chhatra Parishad. Now both sides are blaming each other and called for a road blockade. On 17 December, Trinamool councillors thrashed the headmaster of a school in Kolkata over an admissions row. “It’s not the CPI(M) or the Congress,” says Hore. “What is most dangerous for the Trinamool is the Trinamool itself.” That just means that after all the talk of change, the person being most short-changed is the hapless voter in West Bengal.