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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to...

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to themselves. Whether in villages, municipalities or university campuses, countless Bengalis, especially the Hindu community, have complained that political power was exercised not only through the ballot box but through fear during the TMC rule. Against this backdrop, the scenes that unfolded during Abhishek Banerjee’s Sonarpur visit was a symbolic moment. The TMC political class that once inspired fear suddenly found itself confronting fearlessness and the ire of ordinary citizens. Trinamool leaders accustomed to hectoring and threatening the public were forced to face its ire as Abhishek was heckled and pelted with eggs. The Trinamool Congress would be mistaken if it dismisses the episode as an isolated incident. Across West Bengal after the polls, there is a palpable anger against TMC leaders and their henchmen. That simmering rage appears increasingly difficult to contain. For years, Abhishek Banerjee had projected himself as the heir apparent to Bengal’s ruling establishment, speaking haughtily with the confidence of a man convinced that power was permanently on his side. Now that the TMC is out of power, Sonarpur offered a starkly different picture. It showed what happens when politicians who are accustomed to commanding the public are suddenly confronted by it. From the horrors of Sandeshkhali to the public fury unleashed after the R.G. Kar outrage, West Bengal witnessed episode after episode that laid bare the TMC’s intimidation and moral corruption. The crowd that confronted Abhishek Banerjee at Sonarpur was venting years of accumulated resentment against a political culture many Bengalis had come to associate with arrogance, patronage and strong-arm tactics. They reflected what a significant section of the public has increasingly come to see as the moral bankruptcy of a political order that believed it could rule indefinitely through fear and organisational muscle. Abhishek Banerjee, more than any other TMC leader, had became the face of that system. The hostility he encountered in Sonarpur was political payback delivered by a public no longer willing to whisper its anger. While no civilised society should endorse mob violence, no politician can expect public sympathy after years of bullying and intimidating citizens. He or she must realize that political arrogance has consequences and that public anger, when it finally erupts, grinds even the most powerful dynasties to dust. Abhishek Banerjee’s reception in Sonarpur may therefore prove to be more than an embarrassing political episode. It may become the defining image of Trinamool’s final decline and fall.

Congress likely to suffer setback in Marathwada

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra chief minister and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Chavan is likely to lodge a defining blow to the ailing Congress in Marathwada region during the union home minister Amit Shah’s visit to Nanded next week.


Chavan’s entry was expected to strengthen the BJP in the parts of Marathwada that had remained under the influence of the Congress. However, the party lost even the Nanded Lok Sabha seat. Chavan’s decision to quit the party was expected to weaken the Congress in the regions. That didn’t seem to happen at least during the parliamentary elections last year. Though the BJP recovered its position during assembly elections later, Chavan had little role to play in that sweeping victory of the state BJP. He remained stuck primarily to the Bhokar assembly segment from where his daughter Srijaya was contesting on the BJP ticket. His contribution to the party organization too remained dismal during the period.


On this backdrop, during the recent organizations elections Chavan sprang back to action and got his men elected to the district units of the BJP in many of the districts in Marathwada along with Nanded. During Shah’s visit to Nanded next week the next chapter of the story is likely to be written where majority of Chavan’s supporters within Congress party organization will be roped in to the BJP. Chavan is also likely to bring along more influential leaders from Congress and other political parties from Jalna, Beed, Parbhani, Latur and Hingoli districts apart from Nanded. Many former Congress MLAs and MLCs are likely to join the BJP ahead of the local body elections later this year. Chavan is currently on a spree to meet such senior and heavyweight leaders from other parties, the sources said.


Chavan appeared to have lost his political clout in the region after joining the BJP. After debacle in Lok Sabha, he consciously avoided limelight and concentrated on the assembly segments in Nanded district. Jitesh Antapurkar from Deglur-Biloli and Chavan’s daughter Srijaya from Bhokar won the election restoring Chavan’s confidence. In the next stage Chavan established his upper hand in the district party unit. Now his next step will be to rope in Congress heavyweights, sources close to him have said.


Former minister from Pathri Suresh Varpudkar and former MLAs Kailas Gorantyal (Jalna) and Badamrao Pandit (Gevrai) along with a few more former MLAs are likely to join the BJP in presence of Shah next week. Chavan is very actively pursuing all such leaders. He even visited Nanded Congress district president B R Kadam sending out a strong signal that he not keeping any stone unturned in strengthening the BJP in the region as part of efforts to restore his lost clout in the region.

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