Congress(i)'s travails in West Bengal

THE SPLIT IN the West Bengal unit of the Congress(I) with at least eight MLAs walking over to Ms. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (along with three members of the AICC from the State) is indeed a manifestation of the serious crisis that the Congress(I) as a party is faced with. Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her aides in the party may take solace that the number of MLAs who decided to quit was only eight; after all, as many as 19 Congress(I) MLAs had petitioned the party president some time ago to endorse the idea of a grand alliance - mahajot - against the ruling Left Front in West Bengal. And if only eight among them decided to leave the party now, it could be because only they were assured of nominations on behalf of the Trinamool Congress in the coming Assembly elections.

That the Congress(I) in West Bengal is no longer the rallying point against the ruling Left combine is a fact. After the Left Front wrested power in 1977, the Congress(I) could hardly revive its organisation in the State. Its performance in successive elections (both to the Assembly as well to the Lok Sabha) seemed to mark a course of permanent decline. The realignment of forces after the 1996 general elections where the Congress(I) found itself keeping alive the United Front dispensation (in which the Left parties had a major role to play) had only compounded the crisis. The birth of the Trinamool Congress and the emergence of Ms. Mamata Banerjee as the rallying point of all those opposed to the ruling combine in the State was only natural in that context. And even the little space that the Congress(I) could retain after all these began to shrink further thanks to the inability of the party high command to come out firmly against the idea of a `mahajot'; that the high command did nothing to stop Mr. A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhry from campaigning for a `mahajot' for several months could not but have driven a section from the party to Ms. Banerjee's combine.

It may be true that the Congress(I) leadership was left with very little room in terms of putting in place a strategy in West Bengal after Ms. Banerjee left the party. And the imperatives for the party at the national level - its attitude to the Left parties - particularly after Ms. Banerjee tied up with the BJP had left it in the lurch at least in West Bengal. After all, the results of the successive elections since 1998 (after Ms. Banerjee floated her own outfit and tied up with the BJP) established that it was the Trinamool Congress and not the Congress(I) that had emerged as the rallying point of forces opposed to the Left Front in West Bengal. And in this sense, the developments in West Bengal could not have come as a surprise to the Congress(I) high command.

But then, there is a larger message from the West Bengal developments. That is the tendency in the Congress(I)'s ranks to make common cause even with platforms whose ideological positions are inimical to the Congress creed. And this is not restricted to West Bengal. For instance, a cross-section of Congress(I) MLAs in Uttar Pradesh walked over to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh (the Loktantrik Congress) only because they were assured of becoming Ministers in the State Cabinet. And in Bihar, the 23-strong Congress(I) Legislature party (at that time) stood united in support of the RJD-led Government in the State only because all of them were made Ministers. This overwhelming concern for self- preservation that seems to be guiding a cross-section of the Congress(I)'s ``leaders'' in the various States is a factor that Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her aides must address in real earnest. The developments in West Bengal are only a manifestation of the self- serving moves of many of the State level leaders.

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Section  : Opinion
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