Loyalists of Mamata, Abhishek face off amid social media row, leaders to meet tomorrow | Kolkata - Hindustan Times
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Loyalists of Mamata, Abhishek face off amid social media row, leaders to meet today

By, Kolkata
Feb 12, 2022 05:48 AM IST

Top TMC leaders said West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee asked four of her loyalists and Abhishek Banerjee to attend an emergency meeting at her residence on Saturday afternoon although Bengal will witness polls at four important civic bodies during the day.

The ongoing conflict between followers of Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee intensified on Friday when loyalists of the young leader started a social media campaign on the ‘one-man-one-post’ policy that the TMC adopted last year during a massive organisational rejig.

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mamata Banerjee has called an emergency meeting of a few select TMC leaders at her residence on Saturday afternoon. (HT PHOTO.)
West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mamata Banerjee has called an emergency meeting of a few select TMC leaders at her residence on Saturday afternoon. (HT PHOTO.)

Many in the party saw this as a revolt against the chief minister because Abhishek has been an outspoken propagator of the policy since June 2021, when he was made national general secretary of the TMC. He stepped down from the post of president of the youth wing, saying younger people should be given an opportunity to rise from the ranks.

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The campaign, #OneManOnePost, created a storm on Facebook and Twitter, causing embarrassment for the TMC because in November last year Mamata Banerjee decided to relax the policy and nominate six members of the legislative assembly (MLA) for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections. Four of them were councillors in the outgoing board. The most prominent among these leaders was cabinet minister and former Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, an old and trusted aide of the chief minister. After his victory, Hakim, who was already a minister, was once again made mayor of the Bengal capital.

Top TMC leaders said Banerjee asked four of her loyalists and Abhishek Banerjee to attend an emergency meeting at her residence on Saturday afternoon although Bengal will witness polls at four important civic bodies during the day.

Those asked to attend the meeting are Hakim, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee, national vice-president Subrata Bakshi and minister Aroop Biswas. Abhishek, who returned from Goa on Friday after campaigning for the assembly polls that the party is contesting, avoided the media.

“The one-man-one-post campaign is not endorsed by the TMC. Nobody should create confusion on social media. It is a crime. When the policy was adopted, it was also mentioned that the party chairperson can change it if the need arises. She has been re-elected chairperson again (during the recent organizational poll). She will call a meeting and formulate a new policy,” Hakim told the media.

The hashtag drew attention because not only a host of TMC youth wing leaders shared the posts but even some young members of the Banerjee family, including Abhishek’s cousins, Akash Banerjee, Agnisha Banerjee and Aditi Gayen, wrote posts demanding its implementation. Most of the posts carried a video showing the chief minister announcing the policy in June last year.

Sudip Raha, a youth wing leader and Abhishek loyalist, said: “We all heard Mamata Banerjee saying that our party will implement the one-man-one-post policy. She is our supreme leader. If she says it will not be enforced, we will accept her decision.”

A post, which was deleted shortly after it surfaced, was put up as a social media handle of minister Chandrima Bhattacharya.

“The post was uploaded without my knowledge. This was not my official page. It was done by I-PAC. I never went against the chief minister. I am totally loyal to her. I condemn this,” said Bhattacharya, putting the blame on the Indian Political Action Committee, or I-PAC, the company launched by the TMC’s election strategist Prashant Kishor who is now helping the party contest polls in other states, including Goa.

The expansion programme is being spearheaded by Abhishek who introduced Kishor to the chief minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wrested 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, dealing a blow. I-Pac was hired to help the TMC in the 2021 assembly polls and the party secured 213 of 294 seats.

I-PAC quickly disassociated itself from the campaign saying it does not control the TMC’s social media pages.

“I-PAC doesn’t handle any digital properties of @AITCofficial or any of its leaders. Anyone making such a claim is either uninformed or is blatantly lying. AITC should look into if and how their digital properties and/or that of their leaders are being “allegedly (mis)used,” the company tweeted on its official handle.

TMC leaders said disciplinary action might be taken against Kamarhati legislator Madan Mitra who made many controversial statements on social media in recent weeks. He was cautioned earlier and asked not to go live on Facebook.

“I am not an Abhishek Banerjee loyalist. If Mamata Banerjee says one man can hold all posts I will accept it. If the party expels me I will accept that as well. Before taking action against me why doesn’t the party set up a commission and ask common people to depose before it. Let people say if I uttered even a word against the party,” said Mitra.

The BJP took pot-shots at the ruling party, saying the so-called revolt might be staged to project Abhishek.

“While this fiasco may appear to be a conflict between Mamata Banerjee and her nephew over control of the party, we will not be surprised if all this is found to be staged to project Abhishek before the mantle is handed to him,” said Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.

The discord between the youth and old brigade surfaced last week when two lists of candidates for elections to the state’s 112 civic bodies were released.

The list approved by the chief minister was physically released on February 4 by Partha Chatterjee and Subrata Bakshi. The second one was uploaded almost simultaneously on the party’s Facebook and Twitter page, leading to an unprecedented fiasco.

Discrepancies in around 150 of 2270 names in the two lists triggered agitations in 19 Bengal districts where elections will be held in two phases this month. At least two TMC district leaders left the party on not getting nominated while a former municipality chairman declared that he will contest on his own.

On February 7, Mamata Banerjee empowered her team of old aides and senior ministers to enforce her decision in selection of candidates and overrule the second list that was uploaded, allegedly without her consent.

Hakim alleged that the second list was uploaded by people who were given unauthorized access to passwords to the party’s social media accounts by insiders.

Significantly, the second list was not removed till Friday, indicating that the old guard had no control on the TMC’s social media pages. While the list was the last post on the Twitter handle, a video of Abhishek’s campaign in Goa was the only post that could be seen on the Facebook page after the list was released.

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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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