The Trinamul is on way to change the party’s constitution for the first time since August 9, 1998 when it was last amended, barely eight months after Mamata Banerjee had walked out of the Congress and formed a new party on the first day of 1998, as it readies to spread its wings across the length and breadth of the country.
However, what exactly those changes will be have not yet been specified.
On Monday, evening at her Kalighat residence, Mamata held a meeting with the 21 members of party’s working committee, drawn on the lines of the Congress working committee where Mamata drew her first blood in politics. Also present were five others, four of them from different political parties—Yashwant Sinha (BJP), Ashok Tanwar (Congress and Apna Bharat Morcha), Mukul Sangma (Congress), Pavan K Verma (JDU) and tennis ace Leander Paes.
The takeaway from Monday evening’s brainstorming was that the Trinamul would pitch for an Opposition minus the Congress. That was the main reason why the party stayed away from the Opposition MPs' meeting called by the Congress in Parliament. The Trinamul was not among the signatories to a letter on the suspension of 12 MPs that included two of their own Rajya Sabha members.
The signatories included the Congress, DMK, Shiv Sena, SP, NCP, CPM, CPI, IUML, LJD, JDS, MDMK, TRS and AAP. The last-named party had also skipped the Opposition meeting.
The amendment made on August 9 1998 were regarding rules of the All India Trinamul Congress, which came into effect from June 1st, 2000 more than 21 years ago.
“Trinamul will lead the country against the BJP in 2024. We are growing. While the DNA of Trinamul will remain unchanged, some changes will be made in the constitution. Mamata di will take the decisions,” said Derek O’Brien, Trinamul’s Rajya Sabha MP.
According to O’Brien members from other states will be inducted into the working committee, though the names would be finalised by Mamata. The party’s constitution itself has given the power to Mamata, often referred to as the Trinamul supremo”, as she being the chairperson, is “the Supreme of the Association Body” since its inception.
The Constitution already has provision for opening units in all the 26 states and the six union territories.
The article III of the Trinamul states: The name of the Party shall be the ALL INDIA TRINAMOOL CONGRESS. The Party shall have its own flag, logo, symbol and its National Headquarters at such place as the Party shall deem fit and proper. The Pradesh Trinamool Congress Committee shall ordinarily be constituted in the Pradeshes named below with the headquarters mentioned against each.
Trinamul is headquartered in Calcutta and unlike the other national parties does not have any office in Delhi. A plot was allotted to the party in 2013 when it was a part of the UPA-II but the Trinamul could not build its office as it is “illegally occupied.”
In a letter in 2017 to Hardeep Puri, then Union housing minister, O’Brien had mentioned: “As a member of a recognised national party with almost 50 MPs, I am saddened to inform you that despite running from pillar to post for many years, we are still ‘office-less’ in Delhi. We are compelled to run our office from the residence of the undersigned.”
The party also functions from Abhishek Banerjee’s Delhi residence at times.
Nothing in the party’s organisation has changed in the last 23 years, except for the post of the secretary-general held by state industries minister Partha Chatterjee, a post which is not mentioned in the party’s constitution.
For a while Trinamul has been testing the waters in different states looking at leaders nursing a grudge be it Congress or the BJP, the two biggest national parties in India.
With the inclusion of leaders like Verma, Tanwar and Sangma it has now units across North and Eastern India from Haryana to Tripura. Trinamul’s expansionist plans too are not new.
For example, the party’s Arunachal Pradesh unit led by the only MLA Laeta Umbrey, a former Congress MP from the state, had merged with the People’s Party of Arunachal in 2013.
According to sources, the party has renewed its interest in Arunachal and a Calcutta-based businessman close to the Trinamul’s all India general secretary is camping in Itanagar for the last six days parleying with disgruntled Congress and BJP leaders to join the Trinamul.
