Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has begun internal discussions to strengthen the party in West Bengal days before he meets crisis-hit Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday, the second such meeting between top leaders of the two parties. The meetings came amid a series of walkouts from the TMC after it lost power in West Bengal last month after 15 years.
People familiar with the matter said Gandhi met former West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary on Saturday and they discussed the urgent tasks of reviving the party in the state, where it lost power 49 years ago in 1977. Chaudhary, a fierce critic of the TMC, was quoted as telling Gandhi that the Congress, which won two of the 294 seats in this year’s Assembly elections, has a “golden opportunity” to revive itself in West Bengal. The two leaders discussed how a large section of the people, especially Muslims, who constitute 27% of the state’s population (2011 census), could turn towards the conference.
A Congress leader said that Chaudhary told Gandhi that many leaders and grassroots workers in the TMC were keen to join the Congress after the TMC debacle. Chaudhary remains a strong advocate of alliance with Left parties to attract anti-TMC voters. A section of the state unit of Congress opposes this idea.
Chowdhury said he was in Delhi and therefore asked for an appointment with Rahul Gandhi. “It is clear that when we meet, we do not discuss the weather in Bengal,” he said. The meeting has gained importance as the Congress is considering a change in leadership in West Bengal.
TMC has been putting out fires since the power outage. It expelled two of its 78 state legislators before 57 of them rebelled and supported Ritabrata Banerjee as leader of the opposition in the assembly. At least 16 of the 28 TMC Lok Sabha members rebelled and met West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
On Monday, TMC’s Sukhendu Sekhar Rai resigned from the Rajya Sabha. His party colleagues in the Senate, Prakash Shek Barak, on Thursday, and Sushmita Dave the day before, followed suit, bringing down the party’s strength to 10 in the Rajya Sabha.
Banerjee met Gandhi on Wednesday to explore possibilities of deepening ties, even as the TMC rejected speculation that the two parties were discussing a merger. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. The TMC leadership is expected to meet Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
The TMC did not rule out the possibility of an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal, something it has avoided since 2012. The TMC came to power in 2011 in alliance with the Congress after the Left Front’s 34-year rule.
