The Congress High Command overruled its state chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhary to not put up a candidate against Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur. The BJP put up a relatively lightweight candidate in Priyanka Tibrewal leading to a big win for the chief minister by 58,832 votes. Banerjee has exceeded her own record of the 2011 Bhabanipur bye-election where she won by 54,213 votes. Interestingly, she has doubled the vote margin of Sovandeb Chatterjee who won the Bhabanipur assembly constituency in the recently held West Bengal elections.
Both the BJP and the Congress will contend in hindsight that the Bhabanipur win was given for the CM and a no-contest. This may explain why the big guns of the BJP did not go for the campaign while the Congress chose to be absent from the scene and not aid its erstwhile partner from last polls, the Left, whose candidate has fared poorly and will even lose his deposit. But post facto, both BJP and Congress have reasons to worry after Bhabanipur.
For the BJP, the exodus from the party to the TMC could turn from a trickle to a flood with Banerjee solidifying her position in the state. Already, the party is down to 71 MLAs from the 77 seats it had won five months ago and more seem to be in line. The BJP has changed the state president to stem the tide and end the conflict between former state head Dilip Ghosh and the leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari.
Questions, however, remain why a bigger face was not put up before Banerjee given her CM chair was at stake – like former state chief Dilip Ghosh or one amongst from the sitting BJP MPs who had contested in the last state elections. In fact, few among the sitting BJP MPs are also said to be in touch with the TMC after Babul Supriyo jumped ship in middle of the by-polls. BJP, hence, risks losing the gains it made in West Bengal in 2019 and 2021.
Congress Worry?
The worry for the Congress could in fact be bigger than BJP’s as the TMC will now escalate its efforts to expand nationally in other states, and directly hurt the Congress. The three states where the BJP plans to expand — Tripura, Goa and Meghalaya — will be effecting the chances of the Congress as TMC is projecting itself as the “biggest and most credible” opposition against the BJP. The jury is out if the TMC will be able to dislodge the BJP in either of these states but it will surely harm Congress’s chances.
With her citadel and the CM chair now secured, Banerjee would now have more mind-space and time to focus on the expansionist plans of the TMC along with Abhishek Banerjee who has been leading that effort so far with the help of political strategist Prashant Kishor. The speed and scale at which TMC has entered the Goa political landscape should be a clear warning signal for the Congress to no longer rest in the comfort of Mamata’s earlier meeting and ‘bonhomie’ with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
TMC’s recent statements, through Abhishek Banerjee and in its mouthpiece, ridiculing the Congress and TMCs silent acquisition of Congress leaders in various states should further raise red flags in the Congress that TMC plans to overshadow it as the principal opposition party. Congress underplays such ambitions of the TMC and believes TMC has no national political footprint like the Congress. But three years till 2024 is a long time in politics.
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