On December 23, two days after the publication of a news item on an online media platform speaking of a rift between Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee and her political advisor, Prashant Kishor, the mentor of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), the party took to Twitter to rubbish such claims.
“There is absolutely NO MERIT in the hugely speculative & unsubstantiated reporting regarding the difference of opinion or working relationship between TMC and @IndianPAC. Under the leadership of @MamataOfficial, we work as one team and will continue to collaborate in the future,” the TMC wrote in a tweet.
On February 7, after the state’s leading Bengali newspaper reported a possible abrupt end to the TMC’s agreement with the I-PAC and a direct confrontation between Banerjee and Kishor, the TMC leadership only gave evasive replies.
Banerjee, responding to the journalists’ questions before taking a flight to Lucknow to campaign for Samajwadi Party, said, “Don’t ask me such questions. You can ask me about my party's internal affairs. But this is not the party’s affair.”
The party’s secretary-general, Partha Chatterjee, said, “People who keep in touch with I-PAC can answer. I do not deal with I-PAC. I don’t even know if or from when the party’s relation soured with Prashant Kishor and when it was good either.”
The evasive replies implicated the party’s discomfort in responding to the party’s relations with the strategic support providing the organisation with which the party had an agreement for Goa, Meghalaya and Tripura till 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the in West Bengal till 2026 assembly elections.
“Daal mein kuch kala hai,” said a senior TMC MP, who did not want to be identified.
Party sources hinted that a party was going through a state of discomfort over the way Banerjee’s nephew and political heir Abhishek Banerjee was using I-PAC to reform the party organisation from the grassroots level, an initiative that had frightened a section of senior leaders. They were scared Abhishek was trying to take over control of all district units.
Meanwhile, the fiasco over the publication of candidate lists on February 4 for the municipal elections due in 108 civic bodies complicated the matters. In the evening, the party’s senior leadership, including Partha Chatterjee, released the list of about 3,000-odd candidates. For obvious reasons, the names were not readout. The list was soon uploaded on the party’s social media handles and it triggered a wave of protests across the districts.
The party, in a hurried response, announced that a wrong list had been uploaded. “The list uploaded does not have the signatures of Subrata Bakshi and myself. It’s not the correct list. The correct list, which contains the signatures of Bakshi and myself, is being sent to the district offices,” Chatterjee said.
According to a senior leader of the party, Chatterjee and Kishore had ‘a heated exchange of words. However, this claim could not be confirmed.
The next day, elaborating on the issues, Kolkata mayor urban development minister Firhad Hakim said, “The password was misused to upload the list.”
As it almost directly hinted at the I-PAC, which is known to manage the party’s social media accounts, employees of the organisation rang up journalists and denied the charge. “I-PAC is not involved in the municipal elections,” they told journalists, though refusing to go on record.
On Monday, after reports of an ‘unbridgeable gap’ between the TMC supremo and the political strategist came to the fore, the BJP’s national IT cell head and Bengal co-in-charge Amit Malviya wrote on Twitter: “Mamata Banerjee has stepped in to sever ties with I-PAC in Bengal and other states, where it was helping the TMC. I-PAC was Abhishek Banerjee’s brainchild and initiative to reinvent and expand the TMC. This is another Mamata move to cut down her ambitious nephew. The feud grows.”
Senior TMC leaders whom Outlook contacted refused to comment on Malviya's tweet. “Mamata Banerjee has always been the only leader in the party and she continues to be so. Rest are irrelevant,” said the leader, on the condition of anonymity.
In a significant move, the party on Monday announced the party’s in-charge for districts for the civic polls and they are all old guards of the party.
Could this also mean a rift between Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek? Senior TMC leaders who Outlook spoke to sounded divided, some ruling out the possibility, others keeping their answers open-ended.
