Patna, Feb. 5: Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress organised a meeting here today to “re-launch” its unit in Bihar in what political observers described as “patthar par doob jamane ki koshish (efforts to grow grass on stone)”.
The description looks apt in the sense that the ruling party in neighbouring Bengal seldom had any noticeable presence in the state. “How could a party which did not exist (in Bihar) be re-launched?” asked a Congress leader.
The party’s chief spokesman, Sudhanshu Ranjan, however, welcomed the entry of a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) renegade, Awadhesh Prasad, Patna High Court advocate Amitabh Ranjan Mishra besides some lesser-known social activists, Ajay Kishore Pappu and Rampravesh Singh, in the party.
“All of us are inspired by the image, charisma and performance of didi (Mamata), who has asked us to build the organisation from the grassroots-level to the state-level in Bihar,” Ranjan said.
He added: “We are fanning out in the districts and hinterlands to aware people about didi’s ideals.”
Ranjan said Mamata had assured the Bihar unit to address a public meeting at Gandhi Maidan in April after the party completed the preliminary work of opening its units at the local level.
“The people of Bihar have no alternative against the Nitish Kumar-led government. The RJD chief, Lalu Prasad and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan stand discredited. In such a situation, the Trinamul wishes to address the grievances of the people who are getting disillusioned with Nitish,” said Sudhanshu.
Bihar’s climate, as of now, hardly appears salubrious for Mamata’s party. The Trinamul had never contested elections in the state and is by and large unknown to the people at the grassroots-level.
However, it is not that the Bengal-based parties and Bengal-origin leaders have been alien to Bihar.
Sunil Mukherjee was the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly when the CPI was the main opposition party in 1970’s. The party had Jagannath Sarkar as one of its veteran leaders.
Besides, Ajit Sarkar, a Bengal-origin leader, represented the Purnea Assembly seat as a CPM MLA till he was gunned down, allegedly by Purnea “don” Pappu Yadav and his henchmen, in the late 1990’s. The BJP, too, had its share of Bengal-origin leaders in Jagbandhu Adhikari, who won the Katihar Assembly seat thrice and was also the deputy Speaker in the Assembly in the 1990’s.
However, these leaders belonged to the cadre-based parties, be it the Left or the BJP, which have their ideology, structure and followings at the grassroots-level.
The Bengal chief minister is believed to share an “amicable” relationship with her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar but her party is hardly in a state to get recognition among the people in the hinterlands.
The handful of people who attended its “re-launching” function hardly looked promising either.
That they are not in a position to even take off in the state became evident when Sudhanshu admitted that the party was devoid of a proper office.
“We recently met Nitish and submitted him a memorandum requesting him to allot a building in which the Trinamul could set up its office. His (Nitish’s) response was quite positive,” the Trinamul leader said.
