The All-India Trinamool Congress is jubilant. The stigma of an unelected CM will soon be erased as Mamata romps with a landslide victory from her home constituency, Bhawanipore. The party’s popular slogan ‘Khela hobe’ has begun echoing in other parts of India as well as the ‘Didi for PM 2024’ is heard louder, though only in West Bengal.
AITC must come of age and mature if it truly wishes to go national, which is not easy. The party began its All-India expansion exercise by stepping into Tripura but faced a tough repulse from its BJP Chief Minister. Peoples support cannot be mustered by muddying the political pond but must be earned by proven policies, which Mamata must concentrate on now.
Mamata’s foray into Goa by admitting the former Goan Chief Minister, Luizinho Faleiro, representing the INC, could be a cosmetic act, helping her party men glow with pride of the ever-expanding ‘All-India’ Image. I hear that TMC will fight the elections alone from Goa, likely in February 2022. My suspicion of a lack of leaders with farsightedness gets stronger with this action. Goa has 40 MLA seats and 2 parliamentary seats. There have been 30 governments in the last 57 years, people defecting en masse given a better offer. Goa is an oxymoron for political maturity and stability.
Winning in AITC’s flag and led by Faleiro is like winning a U.S Powerball lottery. Retaining the flock is winning it twice. A loss will be an early slow start, tripping in the long run for the 2024 PM run. My sources from Congress seem peeved with the AITC statements that Didi is the only hope against Modi, and theirs is the only party with a dare to take on the BJP. Even if these are true, it is undiplomatic to state so and so brashly distancing friends in the opposition. One doesn’t need clever algorithms to deduce the results of a triangular contest that would favour the BJP.
AITC cannot form a Central government of its own, now and in any foreseeable future. It needs total support from many other key players, led by the Congress party, regardless of INC’s present leadership crisis and implosion.
The reasons for the BJP’s loss at the recent West Bengal Assembly elections cannot be ignored by AITC. BJP Bengal was largely comprised of defectors from Trinamool and turncoats from a few other parties. For many defectors to the BJP, loyalty was not driven by principles but by greed to retain the power they had tasted and were afraid to lose. That’s why there is a reverse exodus by many elected with a BJP ticket back to AITC.
The admission of the ex-Congress former CM of Goa for a paltry 2 seats in the parliament is gambling with their party’s image. On the contrary, Uttar Pradesh would face the polls in 2022 and have 403 Assembly seats and 80 parliamentary seats. AITC, if its dreams of going national are real, must dare to take on the BJP at the lion’s turf, where even a small gain could have enhanced Mamata’s prestige. But then, AITC’s poll-strategist must have had obvious reasons in keeping clear of the lion’s turf during the Assembly elections 2022.
Right now, I’m dreaming of the twin flowers flying at the feni kiosks on Goa beaches.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
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