The lust for a mayoralty has cost the Congress more than it bargained for. An inside report by Chandrasekhar Bhattacharjee
What was to be a 60:40 seat sharing formula in the
West Bengal by-elections has become 70:30 – with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) gaining at the expense of the Congress. Now out of the 10 assembly seats where by-elections are to be held on November 7, the TMC will contest seven seats and the Congress three. Earlier, TMC leaders had planned to leave all four north Bengal seats to the Congress, while keeping the six in the south for itself.
The dramatic turnaround came a little after the Congress, led by Deepa Dasmunshi (MP), sought the support of the CPI (M) to bag the mayoralty of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation. Dasmunshi, spouse of former Union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, has strong supporters in Siliguri’s Congress leader Shankar Malakar and PCC member Sankar Singh of Nadia.
Congress supporters, who had fought the civic polls under a seat-sharing alliance with the TMC, are in shock. In the Dalkhola Municipality too the trio had managed to divide the Congress and grab the chairman’s post with the open support of the CPI (M). As a result uncertainty looms large in the state’s opposition politics. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee was so exercised by all this that she publicly ridiculed the Congress’s decision at a mammoth rally in Siliguri, even as she begged voters for forgiveness. Her party councillors too trooped in for the damage control exercise.
The PCC leadership is obviously dumbfounded, though it hasn’t publicly criticised the Siliguri Mayor. Instead it chose to call an urgent meeting of the PCC Secretariat where the rift came into the open. There Sankar Singh had heated exchanges with the party’s senior MP Adhir Chowdhury. Adhir later clarified his position at the press meet, clearly indicating that the PCC leadership disapproved of Dasmunshi’s stand.
Things had begun to sour for the Congress after the Election Commission announced by-poll dates for 10 assembly seats within a week. These 10 seats are Contai (South), Egra, Serampore, Alipur, Bongaon (all won by TMC), Goalpokhar, Sujapur (Congress), Rajgunj, Belgachhia (CPIM) and Kalchini (RSP). Of these Goalpokhar, Sujapur, Rajgunj, and Kalchini are in north Bengal, where the TMC has no significant base.
Expecting the TMC to retaliate by putting up candidates against Congress candidates, anxious second rank Congress leaders made the water murkier by proposing to contest some seats like Egra that the TMC had won in the last elections. Even state-level Congress leaders were unsure of TMC’s “mood”, with PCC working president Pradip Bhattacharjee saying his party had hoped to contest the seats where it finished second in 2006, apart from the two that it won.”
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
What was to be a 60:40 seat sharing formula in the
West Bengal by-elections has become 70:30 – with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) gaining at the expense of the Congress. Now out of the 10 assembly seats where by-elections are to be held on November 7, the TMC will contest seven seats and the Congress three. Earlier, TMC leaders had planned to leave all four north Bengal seats to the Congress, while keeping the six in the south for itself.The dramatic turnaround came a little after the Congress, led by Deepa Dasmunshi (MP), sought the support of the CPI (M) to bag the mayoralty of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation. Dasmunshi, spouse of former Union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, has strong supporters in Siliguri’s Congress leader Shankar Malakar and PCC member Sankar Singh of Nadia.
Congress supporters, who had fought the civic polls under a seat-sharing alliance with the TMC, are in shock. In the Dalkhola Municipality too the trio had managed to divide the Congress and grab the chairman’s post with the open support of the CPI (M). As a result uncertainty looms large in the state’s opposition politics. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee was so exercised by all this that she publicly ridiculed the Congress’s decision at a mammoth rally in Siliguri, even as she begged voters for forgiveness. Her party councillors too trooped in for the damage control exercise.
The PCC leadership is obviously dumbfounded, though it hasn’t publicly criticised the Siliguri Mayor. Instead it chose to call an urgent meeting of the PCC Secretariat where the rift came into the open. There Sankar Singh had heated exchanges with the party’s senior MP Adhir Chowdhury. Adhir later clarified his position at the press meet, clearly indicating that the PCC leadership disapproved of Dasmunshi’s stand.
Things had begun to sour for the Congress after the Election Commission announced by-poll dates for 10 assembly seats within a week. These 10 seats are Contai (South), Egra, Serampore, Alipur, Bongaon (all won by TMC), Goalpokhar, Sujapur (Congress), Rajgunj, Belgachhia (CPIM) and Kalchini (RSP). Of these Goalpokhar, Sujapur, Rajgunj, and Kalchini are in north Bengal, where the TMC has no significant base.
Expecting the TMC to retaliate by putting up candidates against Congress candidates, anxious second rank Congress leaders made the water murkier by proposing to contest some seats like Egra that the TMC had won in the last elections. Even state-level Congress leaders were unsure of TMC’s “mood”, with PCC working president Pradip Bhattacharjee saying his party had hoped to contest the seats where it finished second in 2006, apart from the two that it won.”
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
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