A CPI(M) Politburo member in West Bengal has alleged Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's outrage at the destruction of a statue of Russian revolutionary Lenin in Tripura last week was nothing but 'crocodile tears'.
Surya Kanta Mishra, CPI(M)'s West Bengal secretary, says the TMC, after coming to power in 2011, had demolished multiple statues of Lenin in West Bengal.
“The chief minister now thinks that Lenin statues should be there. But how could we forget that after two Assembly elections in 2011 and 2016, her party had, along with attacking leftists, destroyed Lenin’s statue in (Kolkata’s) Jadavpur and Garbeta (in West Midnapore),” Mishra said.
He further said, “There is no reason to be happy seeing her concern towards leftists. In fact, we are not (happy),” said the senior CPI(M) leader.
No Trinamool Congress leader could be found to be accepting the fact that the party workers had destroyed Lenin’s statues in Bengal.
A TMC MP said, “Had such incidents taken place, it would have been the direct reflection of people’s anger. We did not do anything like what BJP did in Tripura—destroying a statue and raising slogans like Bharat Mata ki jai,” said the MP.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) is also miffed at the cooperation between Trinamool Congress and Congress in a fifth Rajya Sabha seat that is due for elections.
While the CPI(M) state committee had openly asked for a non-political candidate for the seat, so that both CPI(M) and Congress could cast their vote in favour of that candidate, Congress wanted the candidature of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
“I even asked Yechury to contest the seat, so that we could support him. But he told me that he would not be able to contest, the reason for which I should have known. I understood that his party would not allow him,” state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.
However, sensing a deal between Congress and the comrades in Bengal, Banerjee dialled Sonia Gandhi and offered support. Shortly after the phone call, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who fights many cases of Trinamool Congress leaders in Supreme Court, has been declared as a Congress candidate and Banerjee lost no opportunity to announce support for his candidature. Rahul Gandhi was away in Singapore then.
The coordination between Congress and Trinamool Congress, which Singhvi has maintained to be nothing but an 'adjustment', could lead to a broad alliance between Congress and Trinamool Congress in next year's Lok Sabha election. Even if the left seems to be going into oblivion, the Congress has some vote share in Murshidabad and Malda districts in West Bengal and few 'enclaves' of influence in North Bengal, where Trinamool Congress is pitted against a raging support base of the BJP.
It remains to be seen whether Congress in Bengal accepts the TMC's support or not.
However, a state Congress leader and member of AICC said, “If BJP is the main enemy here in Bengal, we will support TMC.”