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Rabi Banerjee
Rabi Banerjee

Reality Check

Mamata gave 'bitter present' to Rahul ahead of ascent

PTI12_27_2016_000159A (File) Rahul Gandhi with Mamata Banerjee | PTI

A day before Rahul Gandhi became Congress president, he got a rude shock from West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Friday. At a TMC core committee meeting, Banerjee asked her MPs not to sing to the tune set by the Congress inside Parliament.

“They might disrupt Parliament and block proceedings. We will not be part of that,” Banerjee told her chief of parliamentary party Derek O’Brien. The TMC's support is important for the Congress as it is the third-largest party in Parliament after the ruling BJP; its 33 members would add more credibility to the Congress' 46 Parliamentarians.

The decision came as a bolt from the blue for many Trinamool MPs who had been planning to rain verbal volleys on the Narendra Modi government both in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on the issues of GST and demonetisation. In fact, Banerjee gave some additional work to another TMC MP, Dinesh Trivedi, known to be a Modi favourite and himself a Gujarati.

A book by O'Brien on how to check the rise of the BJP had recently hit the stands. But Banerjee has also indicated that she would not play spoilsport for the BJP in Parliament just for the sake of helping the Congress. She, however, asked the party to hit the streets against the BJP as planned earlier. The decision was taken at a time when the West Bengal BJP had prepared massive protests and agitations against her government.

THE WEEK recently reported how the West Bengal chief minister had threatened to teach the Congress a lesson as the party was in no mood to stop making a ruckus inside the West Bengal Assembly.

“They cannot take my support for granted. I will help them in Parliament and they would disrupt the West Bengal Assembly,” Banerjee had said then.

A Trinamool Congress MP told THE WEEK, “We have no other alternative but would have to listen to our leader. Please don’t ask anything more.”

Recently, Banerjee had an hour-long discussion with Home Minister Rajnath Singh at her chamber in the state Secretariat. None revealed whether there was any political discussion between them.

But Banerjee's decision on Friday evening raised eyebrows among opposition parties in Delhi.

“She would have done well had she discussed with the Congress party. Congress party is in opposition in West Bengal. So it has every right to play the role of the opposition party here. Now, the West Bengal chief minister would have to decide whether she would like to play the role of the opposition in Delhi or not,” said Pradip Bhattacharya, Congress leader in West Bengal and Rajya Sabha MP.

For political observers, Banerjee had a good equation with Sonia Gandhi, despite some hiccups in the past. But for Rahul, the beginning was not good when Banerjee refused to toe his line.

One of the reasons could be Rahul’s emergence as Congress president would make him the leader of the opposition in the 2019 election and ultimately he would be in race to be prime minister in the future. That would not make Banerjee the choice, which even Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi party had openly acknowledged recently.

Trinamool Congress MPs had worked relentlessly in Delhi for a few years to bring all non-BJP parties under one umbrella in the recent past. With Rahul’s elevation, things have taken a new turn.

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