The results of the West Bengal Assembly elections were announced on May 4th, resulting in an unexpected victory for the BJP. 208 BJP candidates won, while the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC was reduced to 80 seats. Mamata Banerjee herself lost the Bhawanipur seat to Subhendu Adhikari. Subsequently, Adhikari became the BJP’s first Chief Minister of West Bengal. This marked the beginning of a new game in West Bengal. I say “new game” because elections have been played in West Bengal before. During the 2022 elections, Mamata Banerjee herself used to talk about “Khela hove gai khela hove” (The game is over, the game is over). But this time, the real game of elections began. 60 of Mamata Banerjee’s 80 MLAs rebelled, and the Speaker of the Assembly allocated them separate seats in the Assembly as rebel TMC MLAs. One of these rebel MLAs, Ritu Vrat Banerjee, has now become the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly. Following the actions of these rebel TMC MLAs, Mamata Banerjee suffered a second setback when TMC MPs also rebelled. Twenty TMC MPs left the party and merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a political party registered with the Election Commission but unrecognized. Until then, everything was going well for the BJP. However, a new political game emerged at the national level, posing a significant threat to the BJP. First, the discussion focused on the plan to oust the BJP from power in the 2029 general elections, and then on the BJP’s efforts to prevent it.
Prior to the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC’s plight, the BJP had already routed the Shiv Sena (UVT) led by Uddhav Thackeray, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and the Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD in the Maharashtra and Bihar assembly elections. Immediately following the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC’s plight in West Bengal, a major meeting of the All India Alliance was held. Sonia Gandhi initially advised Mamata Banerjee to merge her TMC with the Congress party to prevent further deterioration and provide Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee with a chance to reap some rewards.
Following Sonia Gandhi’s proposal to Mamata Banerjee, the two leaders held subsequent meetings regarding the merger, as well as a meeting between Abhishek Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi. While details of what transpired during these meetings remain unclear, the key issues that emerged were offering Mamata Banerjee a Rajya Sabha seat and allowing her to run the Congress party in West Bengal as she saw fit. There was also talk of Abhishek Banerjee being appointed General Secretary of the Congress. This was followed by a statement from Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut that Sharad Pawar should also take charge of the Congress in Maharashtra, and that the Shiv Sena UBT and the NCP Pawar Party should also merge with the Congress. Talks of Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD merging with the Congress party began to surface. However, there was no talk of the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party merging with the Congress party, as the Samajwadi Party wants to keep the Congress at its mercy in Uttar Pradesh.
Whether these parties will merge with the Congress party remains completely obscured, but even before this, the party and some of its affiliated media outlets began spreading the rumor that the Congress party, after merging with them, has become like the Congress of the freedom struggle. The Congress party’s objective back then was to overthrow the British government, and now the current Congress party’s objective is to overthrow the government led by PM Modi, who has become a fascist figure, indirectly imposing his arbitrary government on the country by changing the Constitution and replacing the government elected by the people. It claims that after the merger of various parties into the Congress party, the entire country has joined it, and that it will overthrow the BJP government led by Narendra Modi in the 2029 elections.
These parties have not yet merged with the Congress party, and their leaders have not yet joined the Congress party. So, what is this public trust these leaders are relying on to form a government by winning the 2029 general elections?
Whether it’s Congress leader Rahul Gandhi or Shiv Sena UBT leader Uddhav Thackeray, NCP leader Sharad Pawar or RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, or Mamata Banerjee, whom Sonia Gandhi has invited to merge with the Congress, all these leaders know that even if they join the Congress, their supporters will inevitably come to support the Congress in its new form. So why are they making such a fuss without even merging? In fact, with this fuss, they are less likely to win over the public and more likely to extort money from industrialists by threatening them. Reliable sources have revealed that these individuals have opened offices in Delhi and Mumbai and have begun threatening industrialists and businessmen, claiming they will form the government in the upcoming general assembly elections.