Trinamul Divided: 'New vs Vieux"'Feud Delays Lok Sabha Prep, Sparking 'Irreversible Damage'

According to several sources on Tuesday, the party's plans to immediately begin preparing for the Lok Sabha elections are being postponed due to the unexpected outburst of "internal democracy" in Trinamul, which took the form of statements flying thick and fast over the debate on the nouveau versus vieux.

At the party's foundation day events on Monday, leaders of the "new lot" and "old guard" camps engaged in a verbal sparring match unlike anything seen before.

In Bengal's political amphitheater, the battle between the new and the old guard is not new, but in Trinamul's case, it appears to have split the party into two camps: Mamata Banerjee, the party supremo, and Abhishek, her nephew and national general secretary.

Some of the people voicing their opinions might refer to it as internal democracy. However, as our preparations for the Lok Sabha election are being postponed, all of this is causing irreversible damage to the party, according to a source.

"The inauguration of the Ram temple is causing the saffron camp to go into overdrive with propaganda." To combat it, we must be present on the ground. However, we are discussing new versus old, aunt versus nephew," stated a veteran of Trinamul who claimed to be undecided on the matter.

"Neither the new nor the old will benefit from this," he continued. "Only with organizational strength all the way down to the booth level can we win the elections, something the BJP lacks. The preparations we made for our booth are being impacted by this debate.

While disagreements between the aunt and the nephew are not new—they had significant disagreements in February 2022 that were settled—the extent of difference is thought to be greater this time, according to a number of sources.

The meeting between Mamata and Abhishek on Monday, the day of the party's founding, came after a heated argument between the party's outspoken state general secretary Kunal Ghosh, who is generally seen as Abhishek's spokesperson, and Trinamul's normally reserved state president Subrata Bakshi, who is seen as a member of the so-called old guard.

Tuesday saw the public release of statements by Trinamul state general secretary Ghosh, Dum Dum MP Saugata Roy, education minister Bratya Basu, Ashoknagar MLA Narayan Goswami, urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim, Cooch Behar civic chairman Rabindra Nath Ghosh, Baranagar MLA Tapas Roy, and Canning East MLA Saokat Molla, representing both sides of the "divide" and some non-aligned remarks.

Molla, who was with Abhishek for an election-related meeting that evening, stated that it would only be a few days before the Diamond Harbour MP made a comeback to the mainstream in all of his former glory.

An MP from Trinamul stated, "If that does happen, it would not be a moment too soon."

The majority of influential groups within the upper echelons of the leadership continue to maintain a reasonable degree of confidence that, despite the current increase in distance between 30B Harish Chatterjee Street and 188A Harish Mukherjee Road, this distance will eventually decrease. However, a lot of people worry about how much time would be lost in the process.

"Everyone within the Trinamul camp is eager for clarity so that we can concentrate on striving for the electoral victory that is most important to all groups, cliques, and coteries," the MP stated, highlighting the fact that Trinamul's actual political operations have essentially come to a halt since Durga Puja.

According to a senior leader, the main political activity in October was the demonstrations in Delhi and Calcutta, which Abhishek led alone because Mamata was ill. The demonstrations were against the release of Bengal's frozen central dues. The first of Abhishek's five main alleged triggers was being made to press the pause button on the movement on October 9 by his aunt.

"After that fruitless meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the subject, and a few token events on this, there has been nothing," he stated.

Aside from this, sources claimed that Abhishek is currently irritated by four other things. They include Mamata's resistance to his suggestions for an age limit and the one-person, one-post principle in party leadership, disagreements over his methods for selecting candidates for the Lok Sabha poll, and the alleged procrastination of certain senior state bureaucrats on some of his welfare scheme implementation recommendations.

For example, by November, his office had suggested replacing at least 150 of the 341 block presidents. That needs to be completed. A senior leader stated, "Those who were to succeed existing block presidents never got anointed, and several of them quit their jobs and withdrew from party activities out of fear of being removed.

Subhamoy Maitra, a senior political analyst, said he had been watching the party's headlines in the mainstream media closely for days and was wondering why they had nothing to do with the party's priorities for social security or the important political messages it should be putting out in the lead-up to the general election.

Trinamul has been circling around this succession dispute, which has intensified over the last several days. Renowned political scientist Subhamoy Maitra said, "They have ceased referring to their premier poll planks, such as Lakshmir Bhandar, Swasthya Sathi, and Kanyashree. It appears that their senior leadership has been occupied with squandering time by picking sides in this internal dispute. This is a worrying point in relation to Trinamul's mass connect.

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