TMC’s New Committee – Didi’s Great Balancing Act

Mamata Banerjee surely knows how to draw lines for whom, when and where. In her latest rejig of the party’s command structure, her nephew and heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee retained the same post of general secretary that he held when the committee was dissolved last week, but apparently with lesser freedom this time.

There is a new post – coordinator – to which the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo has nominated one of her trusted lieutenants, Firhad Hakim. The choice is curious, as Hakim stands as a bright exception to a policy that Abhishek wanted to implement in the party – one person, one post. Hakim serves as the transport minister and Banerjee also chose him as the mayor of Kolkata last December.

It was over Abhishek’s insistence on fully implementing the policy in the party that a rift between the party chief and her heir apparent recently surfaced in the public, resulting in Mamata Banerjee dissolving all committees of the party. Now, Hakim also got a crucial organisational post.

“He will be coordinating between the national executive and the chairperson,” TMC national executive committee member Partha Chatterjee said after its meeting at the West Bengal chief minister’s residence on Friday evening.

The new committee has Mamata Banerjee as the chairperson, former BJP stalwart Yashwant Sinha and Mamata’s close confidantes Subrata Bakshi and Chandrima Bhattacharya as vice-presidents, Abhishek as general secretary, Hakim as coordinator and minister Aroop Biswas as cashier.

“As of now, Abhishek was clearly seen as the ‘number 2’. Now, as it appears, Abhishek will have to coordinate with Hakim, Bakshi and Bhattacharya. The ‘number 2’, for the time being, becomes a collective leadership,” said a senior TMC leader who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bakshi, who has been a member of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and served as the party’s state unit president since the beginning – and as general secretary for a brief period when Mamata wanted to cut her right-hand-person, Mukul Roy, down to size – is one of her closest confidantes.

Bhattacharya is another person holding multiple portfolios - minister of state (independent charge) of urban development and municipal affairs, and the junior minister for three departments held by the chief minister –finance, health and family welfare, and land and land reforms and refugee rehabilitation. She is one with whom Banerjee is in regular touch.

“By today’s step, she assured her trusted lieutenants that they wouldn’t have to take orders from Abhishek, while indicated to Abhishek that he will have to measure his steps,” a TMC Lok Sabha MP said.

Besides, the Rajya Sabha chief whip Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, who has been with the TMC since 2001, has been made the party’s national spokesperson. In Rajya Sabha, he will be the party’s spokesperson, while Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar will be the spokesperson in Lok Sabha. Roy, Ghosh Dastidar and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra are to address the media from the party’s office in New Delhi alternately.

Yashwant Sinha, who was India’s external affairs minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s premiership and joined the TMC ahead of the 2021 Bengal assembly election, has been made in-charge of the party’s policy on foreign affairs, while former Bengal finance minister and present advisor Amit Mitra will look after economic policies.

Politicians from other states who have recently joined the TMC were also present at the meeting. The party has created a three-member group comprising Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, Meghalaya’s Leader of the Opposition Mukul Sangma and Tripura’s former MLA Subal Bhowmik to look after India’s northeastern region, while Ashok Tanwar and Rajesh Tripathi have been named the party’s convener for the state units in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.

A significant omission is the name of Derek O’Brien, one of the leading faces of the party at the national level for several years now. He is the leader of the party in Rajya Sabha. Among the party’s most prominent spokespersons at the national level, O’Brien and Lok Sabha MP Mahua did not find a place in the 20-member national executive committee that the party chief formed last week. O’Brien’s name now also goes missing from the spokesperson’s list.

The party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, is a part of the national executive though.

According to psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty, a professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, Hakim’s inclusion in the role of coordinator is the most crucial decision taken during the meeting.

“This new post is a product of the present crisis within the TMC and an initiative to preempt similar types of organisational crisis in future,” he said.

Earlier, an apparent crisis emerged in the party when a section of the party’s youth wing activists known to be the 34-year-old Lok Sabha MP’s followers launched a social media campaign demanding that the party implements its policy of ‘one person, one post’ that Abhishek had floated and Mamata subsequently adopted.

However, she also made some exceptions, the case of Hakim for an example. Abhishek apparently did not like the decision.

Notably, following the social media campaign, it was Hakim who told the media on behalf of the party that the party chief did not approve of the social media campaign and that everybody had been asked to delete such posts that they made on social media platforms.

On February 12, Mamata Banerjee called a meeting of party leaders close to her, dissolved the existing committees and announced a 20-member national executive committee. During Friday’s meeting, apart from the members of this committee, leaders from other states were also present.

Former Goa chief minister and current Rajya Sabha MP, Luzinho Fareiro, was present, too, though he has not been given any portfolio. He joined the TMC last September, was made a national vice-president in October 2020 and sent to Rajya Sabha in November. However, he has not been included in the national executive, even though it includes Yashwant Sinha and Rajesh Tripathi.