New Delhi: The induction of several turncoats into the Trinamool Congress (TMC) following the electoral victory of the party in May this year, is causing major heartburn among its senior leaders in West Bengal.
TMC MP and senior leader Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, believed to be close to Mamata Banerjee, has openly expressed his unhappiness at the induction of these turncoats into the TMC. Taking a jibe at the TMC’s top leadership, Bandyopadhyay said that those re-joining the TMC after the polls might be closer to the top leadership of the party, than those of the loyal leaders like him who have stuck with the party all through thick and thin.
“Don’t know on which side of the river I am now; don’t know which river is my mother—Ganga or Padma. I don’t know if Mamata or Modi is my mentor,” Bandyopadhyay said while parodying the Bengali song “Ganga amar Aaa, Padma amar Maa” during a Kali Puja inaugu ration ceremony in Kolkata earlier this week.
Kalyan Bandyopadhyay is miffed with the induction of turncoat Rajib Banerjee who had left the TMC right before the polls earlier this year to join the BJP. Unlike Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, many other senior leaders are talking among themselves and behind closed doors on how they are feeling “belittled” and “betrayed” by their top leadership.
A senior TMC leader who did not wish to be named told The Sunday Guardian that the TMC was making the same mistake as the BJP did by taking in people who deserted the party at its crucial time. “These leaders who had left the TMC just before the polls to join the BJP are opportunists; they are not loyal soldiers of the party. They had thought that the TMC was losing the elections and, therefore, had jumped ship for greener pastures. Taking them back is a mistake. We are looking like fools, as we had criticised them during the elections and now we have to work with them once again,” the senior TMC leader said.
Another TMC leader, who is also one of the spokespersons of the party in Bengal, told this correspondent that he was very disheartened with the mass induction of turncoat leaders into the party and that he felt that the party’s top leadership has not lived up to its promises.
“I am in the party and therefore I have to abide by the decisions that my top leadership takes. But today when I see these opportunists being re-inducted into the party with much fervour, I feel somewhere our hard work and loyalty towards the party are belittled. Abhishek Banerjee had himself said that these turncoats who had deserted the party at the eleventh hour will never be forgiven, but now you see they are being inducted into the party by him. We had won the elections without them, why do we need them now when we have already won?” said the TMC spokesperson.
Several defectors who had left the TMC just before the Assembly elections and some after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP had won 18 parliamentary seats from West Bengal are making a beeline to re-join the TMC, since the party has come back to power in May this year for a third time.
TMC-turned-BJP leaders like Rajib Banerjee (former TMC Minister, joined BJP in 2020), Sabyasachi Dutta (former TMC Mayor, joined BJP in 2019), Biswajit Das (Bagda MLA, joined BJP in 2019), Soumen Roy (MLA Kaliaganj, joined BJP in 2020), Mukul Roy (MLA Krishnanagar Uttar, joined BJP in 2018), Tanmay Ghosh (MLA Bishnupur, joined BJP in 2020) have joined the TMC in the last few months.
Another BJP MP and one of the strongest critics of Mamata Banerjee, Babul Supriyo also joined the TMC in September this year, after he was removed as Union Minister of State for Environment. Supriyo had remained in the Modi Council of Ministers for almost seven years. Taking a jibe at the induction of these turncoats, a district president of the TMC told this correspondent that he has now stopped criticising many BJP leaders, because he doesn’t know when his top leadership would induct them into the party and they have to be friends and work together.
“It seems that the BJP and TMC are all same now. Today, someone in BJP might come to the TMC and he will be welcomed with all pomp and show, and then he will again go to BJP and then again return to TMC. This saga will continue. It is better that we accept that TMC and BJP are all the same and work together, this will resolve the problem of violence as well in Bengal,” the TMC district president said.