Opposition unity has Mamata’s full support, but terms and conditions apply in West Bengal
Mamata Banerjee appears to have created two separate silos on how opposition unity must work; the first silo is West Bengal where the TMC has to be given free run; the second silo is the larger space outside the state. Post the Karnataka election result, Mamata clarified that the TMC would not compete against the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections, where the old party was stronger and better chances of winning. In other words, the TMC would not be a spoiler, as it had been in states like Tripura or Goa, where it undercut the Congress but gained nothing from doing so.
Delivering the message to voters headed for the panchayat elections in West Bengal that the TMC remains a party that can win in a street fight is far more important for Mamata as this moment. She needs to win big in the panchayat elections, against the BJP and against the Congress and the CPI M. For her, it is an essential part of the calculation to ensure that in 2024, the TMC recovers the seats it lost, mostly to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The deeply held suspicions by the Congress and the CPI M leaderships in West Bengal that Mamata would be an unreliable partner in an opposition unification exercise, because she is secretly in cahoots with the BJP, is just that; a conspiracy theory. There is no evidence to suggest that Mamata will work against unification of the opposition. She has been working to unify some significant opposition parties – Aam Aadmi Party, Samajwadi Party, DMK – and has made overtures to the Biju Janata Dal. Till the Congress and the Janata Dal United headed by Nitish Kumar had firmed up the strategy for a joint initiative to bring opposition parties together, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish Kumar were part of Mamata Banerjee’s efforts to bring non-Congress anti BJP regional parties together.
The TMC was an ally of the Congress in the second United Progressive Alliance government in 2009. But it was a complicated and difficult partnership that ended when the TMC withdrew from the government but continued to support the alliance in Parliament. The party has been a Congress ally in West Bengal, fighting elections together in 2011. Since then the relationship between the two parties in West Bengal has turned into hostility. The state Congress led by Adhir Choudhury and Mamata Banerjee do not get along.
Any opposition unification exercise of which Mamata will be a part has to factor in the hostility between Choudhury and the Trinamool Congress supremo. If the unification exercise takes off the ground the probability that West Bengal will be off limits to any seat adjustment exercise between the TMC and the Congress is almost certain. Neither leader will accept the other because there is a fundamental lack of confidence between them. The idea of a Congress centred opposition unity therefore will have to be tailored to accommodate the rivalries, hostilities and preferences of political parties and leaders. If that makes the unification untenable Mamata will not lose sleep over it, because she will no doubt figure out an alternative route to her ambition of being part of an opposition in power at the Centre.
