Eye on 2019 polls, Mamata cozies up to Sonia, Rahul
Her protests against the Tata Nano factory in Singur made Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee a leader not just of Kolkata and its adjoining districts but the entire West Bengal, and helped her end the 34-year Left Front rule in the state. Nearly a decade later, by taking the lead against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation drive, Banerjee has positioned herself not only as a national leader for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but her support to Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is also likely to ensure the end of the CongressCommunist Party of India (Marxist) alliance in Bengal.
If some of her aides are to be believed, their party chief, like with many of her decisions, concluded within minutes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ending his address to the nation at 8.30 pm on November 8 that she will oppose, with all her might, demonetisation. Did she realise the political impact of her opposing the move? According to one of her party MPs, Banerjee's clarity in raising ‘trinamool’ (which means grassroots in Bengali), issues helped her beat her potential rivals in the opposition space, particularly Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
When other political leaders were still trying to make a sense of the implications of demonetisation, Banerjee was on phone instructing her party leaders to get in touch with prominent opposition leaders to convince them to issue statements to slam the move. According to an insider, Banerjee didn’t consult any economists or other party leaders. “She didn’t need to. She trusted her political judgment that this move will be ruinous for the poor, and she has been proved right,” said another Trinamool MP.
While her party leaders busied themselves in contacting Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, the Congress top leadership and others, the first of Banerjee’s six tweets that night criticising the decision was made at 9.46 pm. “While I am strongly against black money, corruption, deeply concerned about common people, small traders. How they will buy essentials tomorrow,” it said.
In subsequent tweets, Banerjee accused Modi of doing a ‘drama’ to divert attention from his failure to bring back black money and termed the decision “heartless and ill-conceived” and a blow to the common people and middle class in the fake name of corruption”. Her final tweet for the day at 10.19 pm said: “Withdraw this draconian decision.”
When she received feedback that other leaders, particularly Kumar and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, were unsure about criticising the move, Banerjee told her lieutenants that the party shouldn’t waste time in convincing them. She told them that it might take fence sitters a week or two, or even a month, but they will have to join. However, she was keen that the Congress issue a statement and wasn’t satisfied that Congress picked its spokesperson Randeep Surjewala to do that. By midnight, and it seems her goading contributed to this, former finance minister P Chidambaram issued a statement criticising note ban. Banerjee continued to persist with the leadership of her parent party and its leadership. Congress VicePresident Rahul Gandhi made a statement by the next morning. She continued with her aggressive stand when the winter session of Parliament convened. Some in the CPI(M) even tried to spread a theory that she was playing the ‘B team’ of the BJP, since she herself is discredited in the Saradha scam and was now discrediting the opposition protests against ‘note ban’. But soon, the Left parties also had to join the TMC inside Parliament in protesting the note ban. Her march to the Rashtrapati Bhavan was joined by National Conference’s Omar Abdullah and even BJP ally Shiv Sena. On Thursday, the Opposition organised a ‘black day’ to mark a month of ‘note ban’. The idea came from Kolkata. Not only Gandhi, but CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury also joined the protest.
Inside the Lok Sabha, her party MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Saugata Roy encouraged Gandhi to take the lead. Both have been telling him that ‘Didi’, as she is referred to by her party members, wants him to take the leadership in taking on Modi. “Our numbers are only marginally lower than that of the Congress and we need not play second fiddle, but she recognises that the Congress is a national party,” an insider said. The Congress has 44 MPs in the Lok Sabha, while Trinamool has 34.