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Patch up unlikely in Bengal Congress

Zakia Maryam in Calcutta

Nothing fruitful will emerge from Congress president Sonia Gandhi's meeting with West Bengal rebel leaders Somen Mitra and A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury, party officials in Calcutta believe.

Speaking to rediff.com, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee vice president Saugata Roy said that Monday's meeting in New Delhi was over by noon. It will resume tomorrow.

"Asked by Mrs Gandhi to clarify their stand on D P Roy's defeat in the Rajya Sabha election, both these leaders maintained that they were not against the AICC, and that all they expected from the party high command was to put a break on the continuous highhandedness of one leader in the party's state unit," Roy said.

According to Roy, Gandhi rejected outright the demand that Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, whom both Mitra and Khan Chowdhury accuses of spoiling the former's prospects, be punished.

The WBPCC had first proposed Mitra's candidature in the RS poll, which the AICC refused to approve. It instead made D P Roy its nominee, reportedly at Dasmunsi's behest.

Gandhi's reluctance to act against Dasmunsi stems from the fact that the latter enjoys a mass base that spreads to even north Bengal, the Marxists' fiefdom. Even though Khan Chowdhury too has been winning from north Bengal for years, of late his popularity graph has sharply fallen.

Dasmunsi, on the other hand, had given the party a surprise victory, that too by a margin of over 100,000 votes from Raiganj in last Lok Sabha election.

On the question of some Congress leaders' desire to join Mamta Banerjee's grand alliance, many party leaders say that the call for an electoral adjustments with the Trinamul chief has already divided the rebel camp.

Roy, for his part, claims that it's the "common quality of betrayal" that has brought together the Trinamul and the likes of Mitra, Ray and Khan Chowdhury.

"Politics really makes strange bedfellows. Only few months ago, Mamta had repeatedly called the same leaders stooges and the 'B' team of the CPI-M. Now see how all these leaders have been showering praises on each other!" he said.

Mohammad Ashfaque, a senior Congress watcher, puts the blame squarely on the party high command for the present mess. On the possible expulsion of the rebel Congress leaders who played a crucial role in scripting the victory of the Trinamul's Jayanta Bhattacharya in the recently concluded RS poll, he says:

"What expulsion you are talking about? Does the leadership have ample courage to expel those defying party's order? If they had, they should first have punished those eight MLAs who had proposed Bhattachrya's nomination on February 14.

"You see," he continues, "the Trinamul had only two legislators in the state assembly whereas Bhattacharya needed the support of a minimum 10 MLAs to file the nomination in the Rajya Sabha poll. If the high command had taken disciplinary action, the situation wouldn't have come to such a passe."

Political pundits feel that Banerjee's real motive behind mooting the idea of a grand alliance to fight the Left forces is primarily to avoid a triangular contest in the coming municipal and assembly elections. The Trinamul is yet to make its presence felt in north Bengal.

Even the growing disenchantment of the masses against the Marxist regime has not helped her a bit, thanks to her entente with the BJP. The north Bengal electorate, predominantly Muslims, will not vote for Banerjee unless she dissociates herself from the BJP, a party still considered untouchable by the minorities.

Both the Trinamul and the Congress leaders here are eagerly awaiting Gandhi's verdict in the present deadlock. She is likely to pronounce her decision after meeting with the two rebel leaders Tuesday.

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