Yesterday once more for Banerjee and Bengal

In the 1990s, from Banerjee calling Bengal Congress leaders watermelons, or the B-team of CPI(M), to now Congress calling TMC the B-team of BJP

In the 1990s, before she quit the party, Mamata Banerjee twice attempted to lead the state unit of the West Bengal Congress. She failed to win the elections on both occasions.

Sealdah strongman Somen Mitra thwarted her maiden attempt in 1992.

Five years later, she entered the contest again. Allegations of rigging marred the polling held at Kolkata's Maharashtra Niwas on Hazra Road. Banerjee lost this election too, but by a slender margin to Mitra, who had the backing of the party bosses, especially Pranab Mukherjee. The second defeat turned out to be the proverbial last straw that culminated with the Trinamool Congress's formation on new year's day in 1998.

In the build-up to this denouement and severance of ties for good, Banerjee and her supporters in the Bengal Congress started to draft the political argument behind their growing disaffection. The imagery of what Banerjee called the "Congress-CPM nexus" was articulated by repeated references to a fruit that is red from inside and green in its non-edible outer covering - watermelon.

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The Congress was then on the verge of pulling the rug under Deve Gowda's feet, and then Congress resident Sitaram Kesri thought he was whiskers away from realising his long-cherished dream to be prime minister. Kesri ostensibly wanted to keep the Left parties, a constituent of the Gowda-led United Front government, in good humour.

As for Banerjee, this non-compete clause between the CPI(M) and Congress was the most significant impediment in achieving her ultimate objective to win power in the state eventually. Having deboarded the mothership, Banerjee's TMC had limited options and drifted towards a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) desperately scouting for allies. Banerjee officially joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with her induction into the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999.

In the two decades since, the TMC chief has moved back and forth to occupy the pole position in the state, winning three consecutive elections, the last one in the face of a concerted and relentless onslaught by the BJP. Her political manoeuvres and her strident position in refusing to play second fiddle to the Congress in national politics after the 2021 mandate are unsurprising.

The TMC's experiments outside the so-called non-secular space have limitations in a state with 30 per cent or more minority populations. From 1998 to 2004, election results from panchayats to the Lok Sabha polls bear testimony to the fact. Banerjee's political fortunes changed from 2007 onwards when she started distancing herself from the BJP and re-positioned herself as an anti-Left and anti-BJP leader. The realignment was complete with the Left-Congress estrangement over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The TMC, in alliance with the Congress, ended the 34 years of the Left Front rule in Bengal in 2011. Narendra Modi's win three years later emboldened the BJP to explore opportunities in the hitherto unchartered territories, including Bengal. Having consolidated her position, Banerjee too changed tack, edging out the Congress and Left to the margins to declutter the non-BJP space in Bengal.

By 2013, Banerjee had taken to term the TMC's alliance with Congress, which had catapulted her to the chief ministership, a "wrong decision." Alone, TMC would have got "293 out of 294 seats," she claimed. For the TMC, there was and still is a strong political reason for pursuing this anti-Congress line.

While the BJP seeks to harvest space outside the TMC's core domain in Bengal, the Congress/Left share a common constituency with the TMC. In Bengal, the two can grow at the TMC's cost, especially the Congress, if it can find its feet in Delhi. In other words, the BJP is an alternative to the TMC while the Congress and Left are its competitors in Bengal.

The 2021 Bengal Assembly polls have shown that a strong BJP at the Centre is not an existential threat to the TMC if Mamata manages to minimise the divisions of votes in the anti-BJP space. Once the home is secured, one can always venture outside and experiment in national politics.

Conversely, as the TMC expands its base outside Bengal through aggressive poaching, confusion and disarray in the opposition ranks can only suit the BJP at the national level. This is why it is yesterday once more in national and Bengal politics.

Instead of the CPI(M), the TMC is now in total control of Bengal. The BJP has replaced the Congress as the dominant political force at the national level. An enfeebled Congress, with tables turned, is now accusing the TMC of only helping "fascist" forces which it is "pretending to fight". This is precisely what Mamata Banerjee used to rue during her Congress years.

In 23 years since the formation of the TMC, much has changed, or have the main characters simply swapped places.

(The writer is a journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.