You could call it a power tussle within the TMC, one that has made its way to the Assembly floor. The rebels are of the opinion they have been made the principal opposition. But with the numbers and the recognition at issue, Minister Dilip Ghosh has been blunt: he says the party is on its last legs and ‘the sooner it ends, the better’.
Rebel camp asserts recognition in House
The dissidents, under the likes of Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha who have been shown the door, are saying the Speaker has given them their due. Banerjee puts it that a ‘two-thirds strong’ contingent of the TMC in the 18th Legislative Assembly has followed the rules and been made the principal opposition.
They are also not having any of the leadership’s pick of Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay for the LoP spot. For Banerjee, this is a matter of ‘we’ not ‘I’ – a stand put forward by the electeds as a group.
The numbers they cite
Banerjee and company will tell you they have 58 with them in the Assembly. They note that of the 80 who were put in with the TMC symbol, well over two-thirds have come on board with their claim, and they say it has been taken on board.
In a kind of olive branch, the bloc is asking for Mamata Banerjee to be the chief advisor, to help them put some heft behind the opposition. It’s a way of being pro-Mamata while still taking issue with how the organisation is run.
Ghosh predicts TMC collapse
Dilip Ghosh has had his say in all this. He called the goings-on in the TMC a ‘drama’ and said it would be over in a few days. In his view, the party is going to ‘come to an end’, and he doesn’t see why it should be put off.
He sees it as a settling of scores with some of the old guard. There is a release of pressure in the state, he says, where fear is no longer in the room and people are making themselves heard.
TMC high command challenges signatures
Not so, says the TMC high command. They are putting the lie to the rebel story, with leaders alleging there are problems with the signatures put before the Speaker. It is a direct hit on the kind of verifiable support you need for recognition in the House.
So for now, the opposition is up for grabs and the question of who the Leader of Opposition is is far from settled. You can’t have authority or accountability when the procedure is still in doubt.
Here is where things stand:
– Rebels say the Speaker has made a note of their position
– 58 legislators in their corner
– No to Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP
– High command is on to some signature shenanigans
Arrest of Swarup Biswas intensifies heat
And then came the news of Swarup Biswas, Aroop Biswas’s brother, being hauled in for an extortion case. That has fanned the flames. Ghosh has used it to make the point that once the fear is gone, a lot of old accounts will be opened.
‘People like Swarup Biswas have been up to no good,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘You didn’t speak because of fear, but you do now. We will see hundreds of FIRs.’ It is a hard line to take in the middle of a split.
Why this matters for West Bengal
It comes down to who is in charge of the opposition in the 18th Assembly and who is speaking for the TMC inside the House. That will set the tone for the rest of the year in terms of how the floor is run and what the narrative is.
With the claims and counter-claims, and a criminal case in the mix, we are in uncharted territory. What the Assembly does next will tell us if the rebels are here to stay or if the centre is going to put them in their place.
