GOA POOR SHOW MAKES TMC GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

TMC will rework its strategy to counter the BJP in Tripura and Meghalaya.

The results from the Goa elections have dampened the national ambitions of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) at least for now and have made the party run to its drawing board to re-strategize itself for the upcoming polls in Tripura and Meghalaya where the party is expecting to contest.

Senior party leaders from the TMC told The Sunday Guardian that the TMC will rework on the strategy to counter the BJP in the Northeast states of Tripura and Meghalaya where the TMC is expecting to overthrow the BJP government and form their own government.

The TMC came back with no seats from Goa where the party launched a high-decibel campaign post the 2 May results of Bengal, after the party received a resounding victory for the third time in Bengal. The campaign in Goa was handled by the second in command of the TMC Abhishek Banerjee who is also the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, along with TMC’S Krishnanagar MP Mohua Moitra.

The TMC’S Goa campaign was aided by poll strategist Prashant Kishor. Despite the noise made by TMC in Goa, the party could not secure a single seat out of the 40 Assembly seats in the coastal state and was able to get just 5% of the total votes. The TMC’S alliance partner the MGP (Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party) also dumped the party following the election results and extended unconditional support to the BJP.

However, the TMC has downplayed this loss for the party, saying that the TMC had ventured into an unchartered territory for the first time and just six months ahead of the elections and that the party was to stay there and work for the people of Goa.

But a section of the TMC leaders feel that the TMC’S venture into a far-off state like Goa was uncalled for and “over ambitious” and, therefore, sensing the party’s defeat, Mamata Banerjee, supremo of the TMC, did not visit the state where her party was contesting even once during the election campaign. The same section of TMC leaders also blame Abhishek Banerjee

and I-PAC’S Prashant Kishor for “misguiding” the party leadership to venture into Goa, where they were virtually an “outsider”.

However, sources in the TMC told this correspondent that Mamata Banerjee is likely to have a meeting with Abhishek Banerjee and all the office bearers of the party’s national unit sometime this month to chalk out a robust strategy to pin the party as the principal opposition in Tripura and Meghalaya.

Sources in the TMC also said that the party has also sent a bunch of leaders, including Tmc-turned, Bjpturned TMC leader Rajib Banerjee into Tripura and have asked them to prepare a roadmap for the party on ways to take on the Biplab Deb-led BJP government in

Tripura. TMC leaders also believe that for the party, Tripura and Meghalaya would be an easy task because both these states have a large Bengali speaking population and that Mamata Banerjee and the TMC would be able to successfully appeal to the Bengali speaking population.

Party leaders also said that Mamata Banerjee would also increase her visits to Tripura and Meghalaya from the second half of this year as for Mamata Banerjee and TMC, winning these two states would be crucial ahead of the 2024 national elections.

“The TMC has to win these two states in the upcoming elections as otherwise the national ambition for the party and Mamata Banerjee could go in doldrums. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now won two states, they are already pushing for becoming the national alternative. We want Mamata Banerjee as the national alternative and for this, the party has to re-strategize and re-invent itself to appeal to the national mass,” a senior TMC leader told this correspondent, requesting anonymity.

The TMC had already contested in the Tripura municipal elections held last year, but was unable to make any mark in the state politics. Even in Meghalaya, the party fought previous Assembly elections and had been able to get a few MLAS, most of whom had switched their loyalties to other parties soon after the results. The Assembly elections for Tripura and Meghalaya would be held in March-april next year.