By Tirthankar Mitra
The decision of national leadership of Congress to make Subhankar Sarkar the president of the party’s West Bengal unit sends a message of cessation of hostilities with Trinamool Congress, the state’s ruling party. For Sarkar who replaces Adhir Ranjan Choudhury as the state chief, has never been witnessed to have been engaged in a confrontation with TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee.
Indeed, the new man at the helm of affairs of West Bengal Congress is known as the “soft face” of the party. In this respect, Sarkar has been different from Choudhury as chalk is to cheese.
Placing it’s faith on Sarkar to lead the West Bengal unit, the Congress national leadership has tried to ensure that TMC supremo has no cause to complain about the state government she heads being criticised by state Congress leader read Adhir Choudhury. This is the last thing Sarkar will do.
Sarkar’s appointment as state Congress chief has been an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, an important leader of INDIA coalition of anti-BJP parties had been vocal in her criticism of Adhir Choudhury’s words and deeds. .Choudhury had old score to settle with his onetime party colleague Mamata and he was always blunt in his critical comments without caring for the TMC relationship with the Congress high command.
The Congress leadership is only too aware that though Rahul Gandhi happens to be the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Banerjee can rock the Opposition boat whenever she chooses. With 29 TMC MPs in the Lok Sabha, as a key partner of the INDIA coalition, the ruling dispensation of West Bengal is not to be rubbed by Congress the wrong way.
Yet it was what state Congress has been doing under Choudhury’s leadership. Be it the gory death of a woman doctor at RG Kar Medical College or electoral malpractices allegedly by some TMC activists, Congress supporters headed by Choudhury hit the streets and the focus on the Chief Minister’s resignation.
What rankled Banerjee more were these agitations happened to be joint efforts by Congress and CPI (M) activists. Having struggled against a Left Front dispensation ever since she was elected an MP as a Congress nominee, Banerjee is very critical of the CPI(M) and she is livid at any accretion of strength of the CPI(M) which is unrepresented in the state assembly for the first time since 1952.
In fact, the TMC leads an uneasy coexistence with the Left read CPI(M) in the INDIA coalition. Banerjee has expressed her displeasure, according to sources at Rahul Gandhi lending an ear to late CPI(M) leader, Sitaram Yechury. She also complained to some senior Congress leaders that Sonia and Rahul gave too much importance to the CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury in INDIA bloc’s deliberations.
Now in the present political situation in West Bengal in the wake of the 41 day cease work of the junior doctors which ended partially on September 21, TMC has heaved a sign of relief. Though Subhankar Sarkar is yet to start his work, he will certainly do away with the earlier Choudhury line of taking anti-Mamata position. The Congress is organizationally very weak, but still the party has some traditional bases in North Bengal and it has one Lok Sabha member.
The fact remains that the new state Congress president cannot afford to launch an agitation against TMC dispensation in the state. Sarkar who had been an AICC secretary before he took up his new post cannot afford to follow the path of confrontation with TMC which his predecessor never gave up. He would have to wait and watch.
Unlike Choudhury, a hardliner and a five time MP from Behrampore, Sarkar is a political lightweight. Never having been a vocal face against TMC is his principal qualification to head the state unit. One change for the state Congress will be the new party president will work from the party headquarters in Kolkata Bidhan Bhavan. Adhir Choudhury used to operate mostly from Delhi and his constituency Berhampore.
As regards the decision on alliance with the CPI(M), the new Congress state president is expected to go by the advice of party high command. He lacks the political weight to argue with central leadership. There is every possibility that the alliance with the CPI(M) will be in limbo. The state CPI(M) leadership is also waiting for Sarkar’s new move. The CPI(M) had good relations with Choudhury and that worked in the last Lok Sabha elections as both parties could mobilise their party workers in joint campaign.
The new Congress president will face his first political test in terms of alliance when the by polls to the state assembly in Bengal are held in ten constituencies. Will the new stte leadership continue the earlier Choudhury pattern and tie up with the CPI(M) or the party will go back to alliance with the ruling TMC to get one or two seats. The Congress has no member in the state assembly. (IPA Service)
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