People's Democracy

B Prasant

WHEN Trinamul Congress leader and former minister in the BJP-led union government, Ajit Kumar Panja chose to stay away from the Kolkata rally of Ms Mamata Banerjee, one could very well realise that something was amiss. Hence it was not that big a surprise when he called a press briefing late on April 17 evening to announce his "rebellion" against his leader. Panja said three things at the briefing. First, he said he had tolerated Ms Banerjee’s "autocratic style of functioning for too long" and that he was no longer willing to be a slave to her every wish.

Second, he ranted and raved against Ms Mamata for her "unilateral decision" to be a willing and naive victim of what Panja described as a "calculated entrapment" engineered by the Pradesh Congress "at the behest of the CPI(M)" to break away from the NDA, without informing the "senior leadership of the Trinamul Congress."

Third, Panja said he had the "support of four other Trinamul Congress MPs" who too have developed "severe reservations" about the manner in which the outfit was being run as a virtual one-person show, where inner-party democracy was completely absent.

Panja said he was not quitting the Trinamul Congress as yet but would think along lines of "appropriate action" at an "appropriate time."

Translated into plain language, this means that perhaps Panja has not yet been assured of any ministerial berth by the BJP. But he has chosen to keep his former partner (BJP) as well as his present Trinamul leaders guessing about his next move. Most likely, therefore, he would quit the party only after he is able to extract the maximum political mileage for himself and for his faithful adherents who include: Krishna Bose, Ranjit Kumar Panja, and the two former bureaucrats Nitish Sengupta and Bikram Sarkar.

In the meantime, all is not well at all in the mahajot itself. Seven disgruntled MLAs belonging to the Pradesh Congress have chosen to join the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), while two leaders of the Trinamul’s youth wing were seen shooting at each other from handguns in a north Kolkata suburb on April 16.

In another development, state CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas has filed a complaint with the state election commission against the Trinamul leader, Ms Mamata Banerjee, for making indiscrete and frankly incendiary statements at Jangipara over the murder of two men in a case of family feud over possession of a chunk of prime land. Biswas has also lodged a complaint against the TV channel that telecast Mamata’s comments in full.

Elsewhere at Mongolkot in Burdwan district, Chandranath Mukherjee, a Mamata confidante, was unceremoniously chased off by an irate mob of Trinamul activists who shouted their wrath against forcible "imposition" of an outsider as a candidate for Kalna seat, trampling down local sentiments for a "son of the soil." More serious for Ms Banerjee is certainly the rumour making the rounds in political circles in Kolkata that at least four Trinamul members of parliament are ready to quit, protesting the Trinamul leader’s "autocratic ways" in running the outfit. (INN)