Battle with BJP helps a dynast in Bengal earn his stripes

As his party's second-in-command, it was Abhishek Banerjee who welcomed Mukul Roy back into the party

A new star is born in Bengal. Abhishek Banerjee. He was around from 2014 when he won the Lok Sabha election from the Diamond Harbour constituency. But the recent Assembly elections have helped the 33-year old come out of the shell of a low-key background player. Abhishek Banerjee has metamorphosed himself to rise to the top during and after the recent Assembly elections in Bengal.

Ironically, the credit for this goes to Trinamool Congress's political bête noire, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP's top leadership felt that to go for the kill in Bengal, they must harp on the corruption charges against Abhishek Banerjee centring on the cattle smuggling and coal smuggling scams.

They dragged Mamata Banerjee in it by depicting her as the aunt playing the role of protector to her nephew. Probably bhaipo/bhatija (nephew) was the most used catchphrase in the BJP's campaign. But it did not stick. Nearly 48 per cent of the voters of Bengal discarded the charge as a political gimmick.

Also read: Plans afoot to expand TMC footprint, won't hold ministerial post for 20 years: Abhishek Banerjee

As Abhishek Banerjee came out unscathed from this onslaught by Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda, he became a hero for the TMC workers. After all, at 66-year-old party chief Mamata Banerjee is not young anymore, and the responsibility of leading the party will have to be shouldered by someone else in the years to come. Abhishek was the chosen one for this role even before May 2, the day election results were announced. But on May 2, he earned the crown of being the bona fide second-in-command of the TMC.

From then, in the last few weeks, Abhishek Banerjee's rise has been phenomenal. He had a significant say in ticket distribution and finalising electoral strategy along with political strategist Prashant Kishor. It was Abhishek Banerjee who decided to hire Kishor after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Ultimately, the results vindicated his decision. Programmes the party undertook at Kishor's instance - like 'return the cut money', 'didi ke bolo' and 'duare sarkar' - worked a miracle.

After the election, Mamata Banerjee herself gave Abhishek Banerjee the credit of winning this tough battle. This credit was well earned. Consequently, the chief of the party's youth wing, Abhishek Banerjee, is now promoted to the party's national general secretary.

On his part, he has said he would not take any ministerial berth in the state in the next 20 years, signalling that he will first establish himself as the leader of the party before taking the reins of the government.

Also read: Mukul Roy, the Chanyaka of West Bengal politics

Since May 2, Abhishek Banerjee has spearheaded the political campaign too. He knows that the primary criticism against him is that he is a dynast. In Bengal, political dynasties have flourished only as exceptions, and at best at the district level, like in Malda (ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury's family) or Medinipur (the Adhikari family). Suvendu Adhikari is a rare leader in Bengal who has inherited a political legacy at the state level. And he has decided to take the challenge head-on.

Abhishek Banerjee recently first dared the BJP enact a law at the national level that no family can have a second person in politics. Then he made it a sharper political weapon claiming 'dynasty is better than nasty'.

At the same time, he showed excellent political maturity when he recently virtually went against his aunt to stop the political agitation after two ministers of Bengal — Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim — were arrested and charge-sheeted by the CBI in the Narada case.

Mamata Banerjee went to the CBI office and staged a dharna, declaring the investigative agency had to arrest her too. Hundreds of her supporters who gathered outside the CBI office pelted stones at the paramilitary jawans. The situation could have led to a constitutional crisis.

But in the nick of time, Abhishek Banerjee tweeted to instruct TMC supporters in unequivocal terms that they would have to be calm and abide by Covid-19 restrictions while the party would fight the legal battle in the court of law.

Within a couple of hours, the whole area turned quiet. The CBI later charged the chief minister with violating the rule of law and got a go-ahead from the Supreme Court to take action against her. According to reports, in an affidavit on behalf of the CM, she claimed that she went to the CBI office to meet Subrata Mukherjee and not stage a dharna. However, Abhishek Banerjee, with his tweet, opened the escape route she is now trying to take.

Abhishek Banerjee has come out of the shell of being just a nephew of an influential aunt. He has now joined the league of N Chandrababu Naidu, MK Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejaswi Yadav, all second-generation leaders of different regional parties who have inherited the legacy of their respective families.

(Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a Kolkata-based journalist and author of the detective novel ‘Mirchi Memsaab’s House of Faith’)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the authors’ own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)