oppn parties Trinamool Congress: Expanding Its Footprint

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Trinamool Congress: Expanding Its Footprint

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-11-26 07:34:29

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The Trinamool Congress is expanding its footprint in several states where it had zero presence by snaring leaders from other parties and forming state units. After the Goa unit, the Haryana state unit is also up and running. Although the party had been admitting leaders from other parties, mainly from Congress, in the last few months, the drive has now picked up pace and has become serious. 12 MLAs from the Congress, including former chief minister Mukul Sangma, also defected to the TMC in Meghalaya making it the main opposition party in the state assembly.

With the TMC not having organizational infrastructure in most states, it is clear that if it wants to expand its presence in these states, it will have to have some prominent local leaders under its fold who can bring in workers and undertake membership drives to swell its ranks. Hence, this is the only way it can adopt. But by snaring leaders from other parties, the TMC is making sure that opposition unity will be difficult to achieve as the Congress and many other parties are aggrieved with it.

But that fits perfectly in the plan that the TMC probably has in mind - that of becoming the principal all-India opposition party ahead of the 2024 general elections on the back of its spectacular victory in the West Bengal elections when it crushed a spirited attack by the BJP on its citadel. Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly accused the Congress of not having the spine to take on the BJP and the TMC has projected her as the only leader capable of matching Narendra Modi's popularity in time and defeating the BJP.

The TMC wants to have an all-India footprint within 2024 and then get the opposition parties on the same platform with Mamata Banerjee as the face of the united opposition to take on Modi and the BJP. It has shown in the last few months that it is going to single-mindedly work to that end. It remains to be seen what measures the Congress and other parties take for damage control and whether this animosity between them results in the opposition not trusting the TMC and not coming on the same platform with it. 

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