NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Congress experiences split pangs again in Bengal

Zakia Maryam in Calcutta

The woes of the Congress party's beleaguered West Bengal unit is far from over.

Just a week after the high command managed to avoid a split in the party over the growing differences on the grand alliance plan against the ruling Left front, discordant notes have again surfaced.

The thorn in the flesh now is the bye-election in Pansura parliamentary seat, which fell vacant after veteran CPI leader Geeta Mukherjee's death. The faction led by West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury has written to the central leadership requesting it not to field any candidate. This is to allow a straight fight between the Trinamul Congress and the Left Front candidates.

Understandably, the camp led by WBPCC working president and Khan Chowdhury's bete noire, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, resents the move. Dasmunsi loyalists' contention is that the party must put up its own candidate in Panskura even if it means a humiliating defeat.

Says Sanguta Roy, the PCC vice president: "Our stand is clear. If the party cannot put up its own candidate here, an independent candidate backed by both the Congress and the Trinamul should be fielded to ensure the defeat of the Left nominee," he says.

"The Congress giving unconditional support to the Trinamul nominee will prove quite detrimental to its image as a national political party. Had Mamata Banerjee paid heed to our advice to dissociate herself from the communal BJP, we would have gone all out to ensure her candidate's victory for Panskura," he adds.

The bye-election has become a prestige issue for both the Trinamul and the Left front. Said to be the Marxist's fiefdom, Mukherjee's votes had sharply fallen here during the last year's Lok Sabha election. While the Trinamul has announced the candidature of its former MP from Howrah Bikram Sarkar, the Left has decided to field the Communist Party of India's Gurudas Dasgupta.

The rebel camp comprising former PCC chief Somen Mitra, Congress Legislature Party leader Atish Sinha and CLP chief whip Abdul Mannan have also discussed the move with Khan Chowdhury, who is expected to take up the matter with the AICC general secretary in charge of West Bengal affairs, Ghulam Naabi Azad.

Sinha alleges that Dasmunsi has always acted against the party's interests. "Time and again we have said that the majority of Congressmen wanted an alignment with the Trinamul. Living the Pashkura seat for Trinamul would have paved the way for a grand alliance between the Congress and the Trinamul in the next year's assembly election.

"After all, we cannot deny the fact that our party has ceased to exist in Midnapore. Since the BJP is not in the fray here, I do not see any reason why we cannot support the Trinamul candidate," Sinha told rediff.com.

The Congress high command's reservations over leaving the Panskura seat for the Trinamul, which is an important constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, are obvious: though the date for the bye-election is yet to be announced, the two rival factions in the PCC are already on a collision course.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report