Could Mamata Banerjee be the lynchpin for Opposition unity?

Having won a third successive Assembly win, Banerjee on Wednesday opened up about playing a more active national role

Subhas Chandra Bose, the only Bengali political leader to have truly ever captured the national imagination, raised the slogan "Dilli Chalo" (On to Delhi) some 80 years back. Since then, "Dilli Chalo" is the battle cry for groups who have disagreed with and felt the need to shake up the government of the day in New Delhi.

The farmers sitting on the borders of Delhi are the most famous recent example to have hollered "Dilli Chalo" until West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee bellowed the rallying cry on Wednesday.

In a signed article in her party Trinamool Congress's relaunched mouthpiece Jago Bangla and later in a speech, Banerjee urged opposition leaders to "Dilli Chalo".

Having won a third successive Assembly win and a rare leader to have stopped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 's juggernaut, Banerjee on Wednesday opened up about playing a more active national role.

The exception of Bose aside, Banerjee has ambitions to accomplish something that leaders from Bengal, such as Bidhan Chandra Roy and Jyoti Basu, who had their moments, could not.

Read | Why is Mamata Banerjee pushing for a Legislative Council in Bengal?

On Wednesday, Banerjee asked opposition leaders to come together, start shaping a "gathbandhan", an alliance, from now on if they wished to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. She asked them to organize a meeting during her visit to Delhi later this month. She said her party would hold a massive public meeting to get all opposition leaders on a single platform – from Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and the rest – in the winter months in Kolkata.

The Trinamool Congress took pains to portray her as the only leader on the Indian political scene who can bring all manner of anti-BJP forces onto one platform. While Banerjee spoke virtually, the Trinamool Congress got leaders of several non-NDA parties to watch her speech on a screen in New Delhi.

The occasion was the Trinamool commemorating its annual martyrs' day. The party usually marks it with Banerjee addressing a massive public meeting in Kolkata. On Wednesday, Banerjee opted to address the meeting virtually. In a departure, her party installed video screens in several cities, including in Gujarat and Delhi.

In another departure, Banerjee spoke not just in Bengali but in English and at length in Hindi. It was reminiscent of when Narendra Modi spoke in Hindi after leading the BJP to a third successive Assembly polls win in Gujarat in 2012. At the time, Modi spoke at length in Hindi to send out the message that he was looking at national politics.

The Trinamool put up a screen at an MPs' club in Delhi where leaders from several parties watched Banerjee's speech. These included the Congress's P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh and Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule. Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party, DMK, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders were also present.

Read | PM should hold 'petrol & vaccine ki baat', says Mamata

Trinamool Congress leaders have stressed that several of these parties were unlikely to accede to the Congress leading the putative federal front, particularly Telangana Rashtra Samithi and even AAP. However, Banerjee will be acceptable to all.

In her speech, Banerjee laid out the contours of the political battle. She promised "khela hobe", or the game is on, for the 2024 Lok Sabha in not just every state of the country but every polling booth. She said her party won in Bengal against mafia, muscle and money power and the misuse of the central agencies and the Election Commission.

Banerjee said democracy in the country was in peril. She appealed to the Supreme Court to institute a special investigation team to look into the snooping episode. The Bengal chief minister asked opposition parties to launch protests against high petrol, diesel and LPG prices. She said the time for the opposition to shape a "front" was now and hoped she would meet opposition leaders during her visit to Delhi later this month. Banerjee said it won't help if they were to hurry now, neither would it help if they were to put up a front close to 2024 polls, but they should start slowly shaping the alliance.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had shocked the Trinamool by winning 18 of the state's 42-seats. The Trinamool has already started preparing for the next Lok Sabha polls to sweep most of the 42-seats in the state. It is not only allowing those of its leaders who had left for the BJP to return to its fold but selecting its Lok Sabha candidates.

Her party has also taken to showcase that Banerjee is the most successful politician in the country. She has not only led her party to three successive wins in her state, but she is a seven-term parliamentarian.

One will need to wait for events to unfold to know if all of this will suffice for her to get the top job. But the opposition needs to fight several battles before that, and a fearless street fighter of a leader like Banerjee might be best suited to lead its charge in the interregnum.