Mamata Banerjee has announced a daylong sit-in at Esplanade on Tuesday against the weekend “attacks by the BJP” on Trinamool MPs Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee, signalling an effort to rebuild political momentum after the electoral drubbing.
The scale of the challenge before the 71-year-old former chief minister — who will also be protesting the “bulldozer raj” and post-poll violence — was, however, underlined when poor attendance forced Trinamool to postpone a legislature party meeting called a week in advance.
Even Saturday’s street attack on Trinamool No. 2 Abhishek seemed unable to galvanise the party’s upper tiers barring a few: only 20 of the 80 MLAs showed up for the meeting.
The majority among the five people arrested suo motu by Sonarpur police over the attack on Abhishek were said to have Trinamool links.
State BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya claimed it was a “Trinamool versus Trinamool” situation.
“After today, I have no doubt that there is sufficient substance to the speculation about 40-50 of our MLAs and a dozen-odd MPs exploring defection opportunities,” a Trinamool senior said.
“This is heartbreaking. If that (an en masse defection by senior lawmakers) does happen, I shall resign and retire from politics.”
A south Bengal absentee, asking not to be named, told this newspaper: “These meetings are now a repetitive exercise in total futility. I chose to spend some long-overdue quality time with my family instead of wasting yet another weekend evening doing this.”
The developments have left the Trinamool supreme leadership worried whether the party can execute its plan to hold protests in every block and ward of the state on Monday against the attacks on Abhishek and Kalyan.
Beleghata MLA Kunal Ghosh spent a part of his evening trying to spin the meeting’s postponement as a tactical move. Apparently, the 60 truant lawmakers were simply too busy organising local resistance following Saturday’s ambush of Abhishek in Sonarpur.
However, while a handful of aging loyalists like former Speaker Biman Banerjee and Kamarhati MLA Madan Mitra dutifully arrived at the venue, most of the absentees were not even reachable on their phones, party sources said.
Abhishek chose to try and weave a grand narrative of a pan-India democratic resistance to the BJP.
“I would rather face intimidation while defending democracy than enjoy comfort by surrendering my principles. Power is temporary. The will of the people is permanent,” he wrote in a post on X to Rahul.
“I will bow only before the people, never before the people in power. We will continue our fight against those who seek to weaken democracy and divide our nation.
“INDIA STANDS UNITED and together, we will ensure that the politics of fear, hatred, violence and intimidation is defeated, and that the voice of the people prevails.”
The BJP brushed away this narrative of politicalmartyrdom.
Debjit Sarkar, the party’s chief spokesperson in Bengal, shared a video clip in which Mamata is purportedly heard taking the Belle Vue Clinic authorities to task, demanding her nephew be admitted.
Sarkar alleged that medical evaluations had revealed no significant trauma, and the hospital had therefore been reluctant to admit the Diamond Harbour MP.
Samik dismissed Trinamool’s allegations of state-sponsored terror.
“Actually, behind the whole incident is the internal fight over the 25 and 75 per cent distribution (of extortion money) within Trinamool,” he claimed.
“Some got it; others didn’t. So they remained hungry. Those who are hungry, those dissatisfied souls have now joined this fight. They are the ones beating up their party leaders.”