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New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is the most astute campaigner that the opposition has. But her national project needs a little fine-tuning to give it a sharper focus.
It makes absolute sense on her part to project herself as a future non-BJP prime ministerial candidate. But her ambition of expanding the footprint of All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) across the country makes hardly any sense.
Instead of spreading thin her inexhaustible energy around, she should focus on building a broad but credible anti-BJP axis by bringing together parties, groups and leaders, both within and without the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
In the given situation, Mamata is the most eminently qualified politician to achieve this feat. She is the undisputed leader of a state that accounts for 42 seats in the Lok Sabha. The Government in West Bengal and the party she heads are completely under her control.
In the first-past-the-post system, numbers are the deciding factor. In a future scenario, no other non-BJP and non-Congress party are likely to collect as many parliament seats as will TMC under Mamata in the 2024 national elections. For this, first and foremost, she needs to provide good governance as chief minister and further consolidate her political ground in West Bengal, to make a clean sweep in the 2024 Lok Sabha. The rest of her time and energy she can devote to building rapport with parties and leaders across the spectrum.
Visualise a situation where the 2024 LS polls throw up a fractured verdict. The Congress is unlikely to notch up sufficient seats to helm a UPA 3.0 unless it comes somewhere near 100 seats. The choice would naturally go to the party with the highest numbers. Even the smaller allies of the NDA could root for a leader with the highest number. This had happened in the past when H D Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister. This was after the doctrinaire sections of the CPI(M) committed the ‘Himalayan blunder’ of blocking Jyoti Basu.
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Far too much is read, by her colleagues as well as many commentators, into her project of building TMC as a national force, at the expense of the Congress. Given the dynamics of Indian politics, this is an unwise course that could even shake her present stature.
Like any other regional party, TMC has its limitations. Essentially, it is a party that sprang out from the stark political realities of West Bengal. After the collapse of over three decades of the CPI(M)-led Left Front rule, she proved herself to be the best alternative. Both the Congress and the BJP lacked the strength and credibility to fill the vacuum.
The Left has been thoroughly exposed before being forced out by the electorate. Also, Mamata had seized the opportunity by relating herself intimately to the social, political and cultural genius of the state.
It will be foolhardy to think that Mamata could all of a sudden shed the regional identity and position herself as a national icon, transcending all territorial barriers. At the most, she could expand her sphere of influence to the smaller northeastern states. It is worth noting that she has largely skipped the next-door Odisha, where Naveen Patnaik-led BJD looks unbeatable.
True, until he was officially made the prime ministerial candidate by the BJP, Narendra Modi too had such constraints. But he had been part and parcel of a well-knit national party with a long history. Aso, Modi could quickly create a vibrant personal impact largely on account of his excellent communication skills.
It is bandied about in a section of media that Mamata is on an irreversible course dismantling the Congress and wresting the legacy of the grand old party. But picking up a few disgruntled and burnt-out leaders here and there and inducting a couple of spin doctors to argue her case on prime TV debates would not mean that the entire Congress is set to fall in her line. Only, the BJP leaders are thrilled to see Mamata and her cohorts chipping away at the Congress and tearing asunder whatever little credibility its leadership is still with.
