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Trinamool's Dilli Chalo via the northeast

Given the complexities of the region, the Trinamool's northeast foray looks like a bridge too far
Last Updated 05 August 2021, 15:43 IST

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool Congress fielded veteran actor Biswajit Chatterjee from the New Delhi seat. The constituency had a history of electing Bengalis – Sucheta Kripalani in 1952 and 57 and Mukul Banerji in 1971. It had also sent a movie star to Parliament - Rajesh Khanna in a bypoll in 1992.

While Chatterjee was both a Bengali and a faded movie star, none thought he could win. The most that the 77-year-old, and his party, hoped was to find support from the significant enough numbers of Bengalis from among the seat's electorate. However, neither Chatterjee's star power nor his linguistic identity could help. He managed an abysmal 909 votes of the 9.70 lakh votes polled.

As the Mamata Banerjee-led political party plans its "Dilli Chalo" campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls via its home turf of Bengal and the northeastern states, it would do well to remember that episode from 2014.

Of the northeastern states, Tripura and Assam have sizeable Bengali-speaking populations. But the Trinamool's previous outings in these two states and elsewhere in the northeast have taught it the importance of widening its support base beyond the Bengali speaking populaces.

Apart from the 42-Lok Sabha seats of Bengal that the Trinamool would hope to sweep in 2024, the seven northeastern states and Sikkim together send 25 MPs to Parliament. But before the Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool would get an opportunity to flex its muscles in the Assembly polls slated in four of these states by the winter of 2023.

Manipur goes to polls in February 2022, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya by February 2023 and Mizoram by December 2023. Until now, the Trinamool has had thin electoral returns in the northeast. It had an MLA in Khonsa in Arunachal Pradesh and one in Manipur, who later joined the BJP. Its lone MLA in Meghalaya had later turned independent.

Tripura has 69 per cent Bengali speakers, while Mizoram has nearly 10 per cent, and eight per cent of Meghalaya's population is that of Bengali speakers. In Assam, which has 29 per cent of its populace as Bengali speakers, the Trinamool's presence had grown in the Bengali dominated Barak valley. But Bengali Muslims primarily support Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

In the recently concluded Assembly polls in the state, the Congress painted itself in a corner by allying with the AIUDF. In this context, Mamata Banerjee's offer to Akhil Gogoi to lead the Assam unit of the Trinamool is an interesting political move. Akhil Gogoi currently heads the fledgling Raijor Dal and is an MLA from the Sibsagar assembly seat.

Meanwhile, the Congress has not thrown up a leader who could either fill the big shoes of Tarun Gogoi or someone who can rival BJP's Himanta Biswa Sarma. There is, therefore, political space for an umbrella centrist party in the state to take on the BJP by reaching out to not just Bengalis but also Assamese and tribals. Could Akhil Gogoi fill this vacuum?

Akhil Gogoi has met Mamata Banerjee after his release from jail but is yet to join the Trinamool. He is young, popular and has led many peoples' movements. He was the face of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act agitation of 2020. However, his Raijor Dal is a small outfit struggling with resources. Would he join a bigger, more resourceful political party?

Meanwhile, Trinamool's Tripura puzzle is more vexed. The state has 66 per cent, 69 per cent according to more recent estimates, Bengali speakers. Despite their majority, and as all national parties – the CPI(M), Congress, BJP and now Trinamool – have discovered over the years, they cannot ignore the over 30 per cent tribal population of the state. The 20 reserved seats of Tripura's 60 Assembly seats have proved crucial for government formation.

Trinamool general secretary, the party's de-facto second in command, Abhishek Banerjee, visited Tripura earlier this week. His visit had come on the heels of the police detaining in a hotel a team from political strategist Prashant Kishor's IPAC that had landed in Agartala.

While the BJP won a famous win in Tripura by defeating the CPI(M)-led Left Front in 2018, it is currently nervous amid the declining popularity of Chief Minister Biplab Deb. Party MLAs have visited Delhi to convey their unhappiness with him. Apart from the murmurs in the BJP, several Congress leaders are also inclined to join the Trinamool.

In such a scenario, would Trinamool persuade Pradyot Kishore Manikya, who has emerged as the unquestioned tribal leader in the state, to ally with the Trinamool Congress for the Assembly polls?

Pradyot, a former royal, led his nascent political outfit to success in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections in April. The Tiprasa Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA), and its ally Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), swept the polls. The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), a partner of the BJP, couldn't win a single seat.

But Pradyot had quit the Congress in 2019 for moving the Supreme Court to demand the implementation of the National Register of Citizens, or NRC, in Tripura. The Trinamool is dead against the CAA and NRC. It is also unlikely that it could support Pradyot's demand for a "Greater Tipraland". In such a scenario, could the Trinamool approach the scion of Tripura's royal family for an alliance?

Beyond that, the larger question is can the Trinamool negotiate the contradictions of India's northeast? What, however, Trinamool's foray in the northeast might achieve is for the Bengal-based party to force the Congress to seat alliances beyond Bengal.

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(Published 05 August 2021, 15:43 IST)

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