January 22, 2025

The veneer of camaraderie has finally disappeared. Rahul Gandhi today launched his most scathing attack yet on Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee, the leader who, till a few weeks back, was the prime mover of opposition unity. Rahul was addressing an election meeting in Malda, a Congress bastion that is in danger of being usurped by the turncoat local leader Mausam Noor. Noor is a niece of late A B A Ghani Khan Choudhary who was the Congress strongman of Malda and has joined the TMC after resigning from the Congress.

Terming the TMC “no better than the Left”, Rahul reminded the gathering that Mamata had sought their votes on the plank of “poriborton” or change, but he said that “the atrocities that used to happen during the CPM rule are still happening under Mamataji”. He added that “Bengal is being run by one person. She neither talks to anyone nor takes anybody’s suggestion. She does whatever she feels like.” He also said that though Mausam Noor had ditched the party under pressure and “deceived” the people, she will realize that deceiving people in the Congress bastion of Malda does not pay.

Rahul tirade will give ammunition to the BJP. Narendra Modi has already termed the efforts of opposition unity to be mahamilavat. He will now use Rahul’s speech as further proof of people who cannot see eye to eye trying to come together with a single point agenda of defeating Modi. But with the Congress scuttling all efforts of unity across India, barring a few states, due to a false sense of superiority, the index of opposition unity is at its lowest in several decades despite the urge to defeat the incumbent being the strongest. A few more speeches like this from Rahul will definitely gladden the hearts of Modi and Shah.

The TMC, on the other hand, thinks that a divided opposition in the state will be to its benefit. It thinks that four-cornered fights on seats will be advantageous for its candidates. But one thinks that it is mistaken. The BJP, the Congress and the Left might be the opposition in West Bengal but the profile of their voters is vastly different. People who vote for the Congress and the Left – the minorities, for instance - are the ones who would also vote for the TMC. So if there is a division of votes from the pool of voters who would vote for any of the three parties other than the BJP, it will to the advantage of the latter. As it is, recent opinion polls have shown that the percentage of the popular vote that the BJP is likely to get in West Bengal has doubled. With Congress and Left hitting out at the TMC, the BJP is likely to gain substantially.