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A crisis of her own making

TRINAMOOL CONGRESS and its chief, Mamata Banerjee, seem to have landed in a blind alley and in a state of splendid isolation. This was reflected so clearly in the laboured attempt by Ms. Banerjee to explain the party's relationship with the ruling NDA. Ms. Banerjee's choice of words, that the Trinamool Congress would not be a "part and parcel" of the NDA as long as "the issue of the Railway bifurcation is not sorted out to its satisfaction", was qualitatively different from her usually forthright manner of putting things. The Trinamool Congress chief is certainly not known for speaking in such a convoluted fashion and the fact that she chose to do so this time reflects her own dilemma. Ms. Banerjee is no longer in a position to ensure that everyone in the Trinamool Congress follows her line. The party is no longer what it was when Ajit Panja registered his dissent (and was marginalised within) a few months ago. That Ms. Banerjee is now unable to carry conviction even within her own party is clear from the reports about an influential section in the Working Committee having opposed her idea to walk out of the NDA once and for all. Ms. Banerjee herself is responsible for this state.

While the very formation of the Trinamool Congress was guided by Ms. Banerjee's own agenda to place herself as a rallying point for all those opposed to the ruling Left Front in West Bengal (she could not achieve this end by remaining in the Congress after the United Front experiment in 1996), her alliance with the BJP too did not lead her anywhere close to realising this objective. Apart from the fact that the BJP was hardly a force in West Bengal, the alliance with a party committed to Hindutva did alienate Ms. Banerjee from a substantial section of the minority community (as well as the large sections of the majority community wedded to the traditional liberal values). Even while she managed to supplant the Congress in the 1998 general elections, Ms. Banerjee could not make any further progress since then. It was in this context that she decided to pull out of the NDA (and quit the Cabinet) a couple of months before the May 2001 elections to the West Bengal Assembly. Ms. Banerjee's stated position at that time was that she would not remain in the Cabinet as long as George Fernandes was there (in the wake of the Tehelka story). However, it was clear even then that she was scripting an alliance with the Congress for the Assembly elections. The script was enacted but it turned out to be a farce. While the Congress managed to retain its numbers in the Assembly (thanks to Ms. Banerjee), the Trinamool Congress leader's dream — of becoming the Chief Minister of West Bengal — remained unrealised and she decided to get back to the NDA (and to the Union Cabinet) soon after.

While Ms. Banerjee did not hesitate, at any stage, to reduce such ethical questions as secularism and a commitment to democratic values into a slogan, the Congress too displayed haste by aligning with her in the 2001 Assembly elections. The same is true of the BJP too; the party was willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Ms. Banerjee in the NDA even until a couple of weeks ago and even kept a Cabinet berth (the Coal Ministry) for her. The Trinamool Congress was seen by the BJP as a platform through which the Hindutva agenda could be taken into West Bengal. But then, Ms. Banerjee had a different plan — to whip up passions in West Bengal — and placed the demand to annul the decision to bifurcate the Eastern Railway as a condition to join the Cabinet. Little did she realise that the NDA, by this time, had managed to enlist some more MPs on its side within Parliament. This was where the Trinamool Congress chief miscalculated and landed herself in a state of isolation and a crisis of her own making.

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