Loyal Opposition: On West Bengal, its politics after the poll

The rout in the West Bengal Assembly election has thrown the Trinamool Congress (TMC) into a tailspin. TMC rebel Ritabrata Banerjee has been formally recognised as Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Legislative Assembly after claiming the support of 58 of the 80 MLAs of the party. Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary and nephew of Mamata Banerjee, had written to the Speaker naming veteran Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP. Ritabrata Banerjee challenged that decision, with some encouragement and support from the ruling BJP. The TMC had earlier expelled Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha, both TMC MLAs, accusing them of anti-party activities after they complained to the Speaker that their signatures on Abhishek Banerjee’s letter had been forged. Assembly officials found discrepancies between signatures on the submitted documents and those recorded during the oath-taking of newly elected MLAs, and the government has ordered a CID investigation. Ritabrata Banerjee framed his elevation as LoP as a “collective fight against individualism”, pointedly declaring that the resistance was directed at Abhishek Banerjee and pledging loyalty to Mamata Banerjee — at least for public consumption. TMC functionaries are quitting the party in large numbers, even as its workers and leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, continue to face physical violence.

Having been in power for three consecutive terms, the TMC’s collapse has long been in the making, thanks to corruption, authoritarian governance, suppression of dissent, and violence against women. While all this had steadily eroded public confidence in both the administration and the party, the expanding role of Abhishek Banerjee alienated a generation of senior leaders who had built the party from the ground up. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari — the BJP’s first in the State — was once among Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted lieutenants. He resented the rise of the nephew, and was also vulnerable to pressure from central agencies that were investigating serious corruption cases against him. The TMC had no qualms about using state resources, local administrations, and police machinery for its power, but it could not withstand the BJP which is willing to stretch the rules of the game even further. In the TMC versus TMC fight, there will be protracted legal tussles over the status of the two groups that claim to be the legitimate TMC. This episode also highlights West Bengal’s decades-long toxic political culture, marked by violence and opportunism. The new LoP was earlier a Marxist leader who defected to the TMC. The BJP has openly stated that several newly elected TMC MLAs wanted to join the party. They seem, instead, to have captured the TMC in the Assembly — a rather curious case of political consensus.