November 21, 2024

The BJP, under Narendra Modi, has never hidden its desire to work for a Congress-mukt India. Now, the TMC wants a Congress-mukt opposition. Mamata Banerjee's disdain of the Congress has become increasingly evident in recent months, first when she said at public meetings in West Bengal that the Congress neither had the desire nor the leadership capable of taking on the BJP and then when the TMC started poaching Congress leaders across India. It was clear that the TMC wanted to occupy the space that the Congress was seen as giving up due to ineffectual leadership. Banerjee made the point more forcefully a couple of days ago in Mumbai when she pointedly said that the UPA no longer exists.

Hence, even though the BJP and the TMC are vehemently opposed to each other, they have one thing in common - their hatred of Congress. For the BJP, it is a basic policy to trash the Congress and the Gandhi family to complete its political dominance as the Congress is the only all-India party with the requisite experience, infrastructure and resources to compete with it on the national stage. But the TMC's hatred of Congress is recent, guided more by the need to occupy the centre-stage in opposition politics on the back of its forceful win over the BJP in the West Bengal elections.

The TMC sees itself as a major anti-BJP political force and Mamata Banerjee as the leader who must be the face of the opposition to take on the NDA in 2024. But the Congress has traditionally been the magnet that had attracted the other parties to come on a common platform despite conflicts and disparities. With the Congress losing elections, vote share and the trust of the people with increasing regularity and its leadership totally ineffective in tackling the internal differences in the party, parties like the TMC now feel that it is no longer the natural choice to lead the opposition. Hence, Mamata Banerjee wants regional parties to come together and fight the BJP.

But the question of leadership is going to be a difficult one to handle despite Mamata Banerjee saying that the parties must first come together and beat the BJP and decide leadership issue later.  For, after the TMC said that Mamata Banerjee is the best leader to take on the BJP the Shiv Sena chipped in to say that even Uddhav Thackeray is similarly qualified. The NCP might make the same claim in favour of Sharad Pawar. Further, when Mamata Banerjee goes asking for votes in other states, the BJP is likely to use the very same 'outsider' tag for her which she so effectively used to malign the BJP in West Bengal. Hence, despite the TMC's rising aspirations, it remains to be seen if other regional parties support the idea and accept Mamata Banerjee as the face of the opposition. The UPA might or might not exist, but even the seeds of the RPPA (regional parties' progressive alliance) that the TMC has in mind are not sown as of now.