Hemmed in by Mamata loyalists on all sides, Abhishek Banerjee retains portfolio in TMC | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Hemmed in by Mamata loyalists on all sides, Abhishek Banerjee retains portfolio in TMC

Feb 18, 2022 11:48 PM IST

Mamata Banerjee made Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy the national spokesperson although Derek O’Brien played the role in Delhi for almost 15 years. Another veteran, Saugata Roy, found no place in the new national working committee.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee once again made her nephew Abhishek Banerjee the party’s national general secretary on Friday but also put some of her old aides in key positions of the new national working committee while holding an internal meeting of the party at her south Kolkata residence.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee once again made her nephew Abhishek Banerjee the party’s national general secretary on Friday. (PTI PHOTO.)
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee once again made her nephew Abhishek Banerjee the party’s national general secretary on Friday. (PTI PHOTO.)

Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya was made a national vice-president alongside Subrata Bakshi and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha who joined the TMC last year. The party had only one national vice-president in the past.

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Two more aides and cabinet colleagues of the chief minister, Aroop Biswas and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, were made treasurer and coordinator of the national working committee respectively. Both are new posts. A WhatsApp group was created for the committee members.

The portfolios were announced days after a discord emerged in the TMC not only over the selection of candidates for the ongoing civic body polls but also implementation of the one-man-one-post policy that the party adopted last year.

Abhishek Banerjee was an outspoken propagator of this policy. Amid a social media war between followers of Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek, the former dissolved the old national working committee on February 12 and named 20 new members of her choice. Though Abhishek figured in the list of names, nobody was allotted any portfolio. Before the February 12 meeting at the chief minister’s residence, top TMC leaders gave her in writing that they wanted her to take all decisions on issues ranging from policy matters to finance.

“Mamata Banerjee made it clear on Friday evening that she is in no mood to let the one-man-one-post policy influence her strategic decisions,” a senior TMC leader, who attended the meeting, told HT.

In a move that surprised many on Friday, veteran Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy was made the TMC’s national spokesperson, a role that Upper House member Derek O’Brien played for almost 15 years. Roy will also be the spokesperson for TMC’s Rajya Sabha members when the House is in session. For the Lok Sabha, the same role will be played by Kakali Ghosh Dastidar.

“From now on, Roy, Ghosh Dastidar and Lok Sabha member Mahua Moitra will brief the media in Delhi,” TMC state general secretary Partha Chatterjee announced after the meeting.

TMC’s veteran Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy -- who recently spoke in favour of the one-man-one-post policy and restriction on age for leadership roles – found no place in the national working committee. Many in the party saw this as his punishment for speaking to a television channel in Delhi while the controversy was raging in Bengal.

“Yashwant Sinha and former finance minister Amit Mitra will formulate the party’s economic policies as senior members of the committee,” Chatterjee announced.

Though many had anticipated that Mamata Banerjee might shift focus from the expansion plans spearheaded by Abhishek and her decision to contest polls in other states, the party stayed on track.

“Banerjee said at the meeting that TMC will follow its expansion policy but not without strengthening its position in Bengal where its roots are entrenched. She said she will visit Uttar Pradesh in the first week of March to campaign for the Samajwadi Party,” said a senior TMC leader who was present at Friday’s meeting.

TMC Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev, the former president of the Congress women’s wing who earlier represented the Silchar Lok Sabha seat in Assam, her home state, was made convenor of the party in BJP-ruled Tripura.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kamalapati Tripathi’s grandson Rajesh Pati Tripathi was made the convenor of the TMC in his home state. He and his son Lalitesh Pati Tripathi joined the TMC in October last year.

Former Congress MP from Haryana, Ashok Tanwar, met the chief minister in Delhi in November last year and joined the TMC. On Friday, Tanwar was made convenor of the party in Haryana.

Former Congress leaders from Goa, who recently joined the TMC, were also invited to Friday’s meeting.

Though the TMC renewed its contract with the Indian Political Action Committee, or I-PAC, the company launched by election strategist Prashant Kishor, till the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there were speculations that she might cancel the contract after the recent fiasco over selection of candidates.

“Not a word on I-PAC was mentioned at the meeting. Before it started, the chief minister held a separate meeting with Abhishek who introduced her to Kishor after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP posed a challenge by wresting 18 of Bengal’s 42 seats,” said a third TMC leader.

Primarily seen as a discord between the TMC’s youth and old brigade, the divisions in TMC surfaced on February 4 when two lists of candidates for elections to the state’s 112 civic bodies were released. Polls at four of these civic bodies were held on February 4 and the TMC won.

The list approved by Mamata Banerjee was physically released by Partha Chatterjee. The controversial list was uploaded on the party’s Facebook and Twitter page the same day. Discrepancies in around 150 of 2270 names in the two lists triggered agitations in the districts. Many TMC leaders accused I-PAC of uploading the list but the company denied the allegation. Although the controversial list was removed from the social media pages on February 13 many of those named in it did not withdraw their nomination. Following a strong stand taken by the chief minister, 70 of these ‘rebel’ candidates were expelled till Friday evening.

The chief minister also rewarded three of her old loyalists by making them mayors of the municipal corporations where the TMC recently won.

Krishna Chakraborty was made mayor of Salt Lake while Sabyasachi Dutta, the former mayor who joined the BJP and returned last year, was made chairman of the civic board. Bidhan Upadhyay was made mayor of Asansol while Ram Chakraborty, an old-timer, was put in charge of Chandannagar Corporation. Earlier, former minister Gautam Deb was named as mayor of Siliguri town in north Bengal.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Tanmay Chatterjee has spent more than three decades covering regional and national politics, internal security, intelligence, defence and corruption. He also plans and edits special features on subjects ranging from elections to festivals.

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