Did madness overcome method in her political style in recent years?
As I observe the eclipse of Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand politician of yore, who entered the annals of history for having successfully dismantled the 34-year-old Left bastion in West Bengal, I am reminded of two incidents centring around Pranab Mukherjee during his years as a Congress leader, prior to becoming President of India.
Three decades back, in 1996, when Mamata was in Congress, I once commented on her eccentric ways to Pranab Babu. He smiled and said, “There is a method in her madness. Wait and see. If someday anyone can defeat Left Front, it will be her, no one else.” Indeed, 15 years later, in 2011, the prophecy of the “Chanakya” of our times came true.
The decline of Mamata in the years leading to her fall from grace reflected lack of method and more of what may be termed “madness”. Her actions and statements centred around sheer eccentricity. Her blind faith on her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, proved to be her Achilles Heel. The word nepotism is sourced from Italian word “nepotismo”, roughly translated as nephew-ism. (By some coincidence, the Hindi for nepotism is “bhai-bhatijawad”.)
Suvendu Adhikari had emerged as a powerful youth face of Trinamool Congress and was bulwark of the Nandigram agitation which unsettled Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s Left Front regime: Nandigram coupled with Singur acted as fulcrum for uprooting the Left bastion headed by CPI(M).
The emergence of Abhishek Banerjee saw sequential diminishing of Suvendu’s stature. He was removed from presidentship of the youth wing, to begin with. Suvendu quit Trinamool and provided sinews to BJP in 2020. Rest is history.
Desertions began from Trinamool soon after Suvendu became Chief Minister of the BJP government, which, akin to Mamata’s 2011 triumph over the Left, had the sheen of overthrowing Trinamool’s uninterrupted 15-year rule. Like Left, which retained 40% vote share in West Bengal in the initial years of its banishment, Trinamool too had retained support of 40% of the electorate. Trinamool’s two MLAs sparked a forest fire—it quickly spread to engulf 68 of the total 80 MLAs elected on TMC ticket. Ritabrata Banerjee, one of the two initial deserters, was elected as the leader of the breakaway legislators and the Assembly speaker accorded him the status of Leader of Opposition (LoP), ignoring the choice of eight-term MLA, Sovandev Chatterjee, who was nominated by Mamata as chairperson of the party.
Breakaway MLAs asserted their right to elect the Legislature Party leader. It was a healthy development considering that across parties, since the Indira Gandhi era, tracing back to the 1980s, choice of the leader of Legislature Party was a formality dominated by selection by High Command, endorsed subsequently by “election” (read: endorsement) by MLAs. (The 1967 contest between Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai for leadership of the Congress Party in Parliament, till date, is the last occasion when votes were cast to elect a leader. Thereafter open voting entered annals of history.)
Thus, two factions of Trinamool emerged. Both led by Banerjees: Mamata and Ritabrata. Both sides have approached the Election Commission. Till the time of writing EC has not disclosed its mind. The Trinamool implosion (it is not merely a split) has been further complicated by the desertion of 20 of 28 Lok Sabha MPs elected on the “jora ghasphool” symbol (which may be frozen as a consequence of these developments). Unlike the MLAs who are rallying panchayat heads and district presidents to fortify their claim to be the “real” TMC, Lok Sabha MPs have en-masse joined a nondescript, but registered political party, NCPI (Nationalist Citizens Party of India)—which it seems is destined to be recognized by Speaker of Lok Sabha as Parliament begins its Monsoon Session. (There is also talk of the 20-member party being ultimately merged with BJP, taking the latter’s strength to 261—11 short of a simple majority in Lok Sabha.)
The defection by MPs, many of whom were apolitical entities before entering Parliament (film stars, sportspersons, et al) showed how by trusting non-party elements Mamata had perhaps erred. However, her close confidants—Sudip Bandopadhyay and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar—have led the revolt. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, a doctor by profession educated at King’s College London, was a buddy of Mamata over past four decades, by her own admission. I recall an incident in 1995, when I accompanied Pranab Mukherjee on a visit to the northern districts of West Bengal which had been affected by floods. Congress veteran Pradeep Bhattacharya and Mamata accompanied him. During a lunch recess Mamata said, “As you two stalwarts are here, I want to make a request. Apart from me, you must give a Lok Sabha ticket in 1996 to my friend Kakoli.” Mamata was a sitting MP then. Thus, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar’s desertion perhaps highlights the isolation of Mamata Banerjee.
Many political parties have risen, reigned and then disappeared into ether. (A word with Greek origin, which means—to glow, burn. Another meaning is “upper regions of space, the heavens”.) Almost all, like TMC, had broken away from Congress—in 1951, Acharya J.B. Kripalani along with T. Prakasam (whose struggle led to the creation of undivided Andhra Pradesh, a demand Jawaharlal Nehru had to bow to). It contested the First General Election (its candidate Sucheta Kripalani won the New Delhi seat). KMPP withered thereafter to merge with yet another breakaway Congress entity (formed in 1948) Socialist Party—thus a new party, Praja Socialist Party (PSP) emerged. Later, PSP merged with another breakaway Socialist offspring, Samyukta Socialist Party, which in turn merged with the Charan Singh-led Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) in August 1974.
BLD was perhaps the first “coalition party”, formed by the merger of breakaway Congress residues—Uttar Pradesh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) of Charan Singh, Odisha’s Utkal Congress of Biju Patnaik, and Swatantra Party. Some local outfits of Bihar, Punjab and Harayna also merged. The 1977 election was combinedly contested under BLD’s “chakra haldhar” symbol; all BLD parties are in the ether now.
The Swatantra Party had emerged from Congress post 1955 Avadi session’s Socialist doctrine, representing the first prominent right wing conglomeration—it won 44 Lok Sabha seats in 1967 to emerge the largest ever Opposition group till then. BJP’s predecessor Jan Sangh had 35. The Indira Gandhi wave of 1971 saw its decline and ultimate merger with BLD.
Amidst these rising and disappearing parties, only Jan Sangh and its successor BJP have weathered storms and even the tornado of 1984, the first election BJP contested and ended up with two seats in Lok Sabha. BJP’s Amit Shah is often heard saying “Chronology ko samjho”.
Will Mamata Banerjee be able to weather “chronology”? Is her eclipse partial? Or is it total?
