A new president for WBPCC(I)

BY EFFECTING A change of guard in the West Bengal unit of her party - the appointment of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee as chief - the Congress(I) president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, has, at long last, conveyed her disapproval of the line of the incumbent chief, Mr. A. B. A. Ghani Khan Chowdhary, that the party must align with the Trinamool Congress in the State. Notwithstanding the political correctness of the move, given the fact that it came so late, it cannot but be seen as just another formality. The sheer procrastination by the Congress(I) high command in even conveying to its State unit leaders that they must not be seen together with the Trinamool Congress as long as Ms. Mamata Banerjee remained part of the BJP-led NDA had even otherwise eroded its credibility. The delay had not just emboldened Mr. Chowdhary and his supporters in the Pradesh Congress(I) Committee to persist with the idea of a `mahajot' but had also paved the way for several of the party's MLAs in West Bengal to formally cross over to the Trinamool fold. Even while all these were taking place with Mr. Chowdhary as PCC(I) president virtually blessing such an exodus, Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her aides were seen convincing themselves and others that all was well in their party in West Bengal. All that they did was to send an emissary to Calcutta to reason things out with the State unit leaders or ``summon'' Mr. Chowdhary to Delhi for counselling.

Be that as it may, the state of the Congress(I) organisation in West Bengal now demands a lot more than a new leader in place of Mr. Chowdhary. The party organisation in the State, even otherwise a shambles ever since the Left Front wrested power in 1977, was virtually destroyed after Ms. Mamata Banerjee floated the Trinamool Congress a couple of years ago. Indeed, the party had to be rebuilt from scratch. The appointment of Mr. Mukherjee, hand-picked by the party president and with an announcement on her behalf to that effect, is hardly any indication that the party high command is conscious of the enormity of this task. Add to this the factor that Mr. Mukherjee is not known for his organisational ability notwithstanding the fact that his role in managing the internal affairs of the party was never in doubt. Mr. Mukherjee is among the few leaders in the Congress(I) who could remain in the inner circle of successive party presidents. But then, all these qualities can hardly help in reviving the fortunes of the party and that too from the state in which they are in West Bengal. And add to this the fact that Mr. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, until now the working president of the West Bengal unit and among those handful of partymen who can lay claim to some popular support base in the State, has now been stripped of his post.

Given all these, it remains to be seen if the Congress(I) unit in West Bengal, now under Mr. Mukherjee, will at all be built into an organisation strong enough to take on the two major forces in the State - the ruling Left combine and the Trinamool Congress along with the BJP - in the coming elections to the State Assembly. That Mr. Mukherjee has very little time before the poll campaign is initiated formally - elections are due before May 2001 - and that he will have to manage dissent within whatever is left of the party organisation in the State are another aspect of the task. The high command along with the attitude of the State leaders has made the revival of the Congress(I) as difficult as it is today. To begin with, the party refrained from taking the hard decision - putting Mr. Chowdhary and others in the State unit in their place when they began talking of the `mahajot' - for so long. And now the appointment of Mr. Mukherjee may not be the magic potion that the party needs in the State.

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