If LS polls came after RG Kar, Trinamool wouldn’t have even won 9 seats: Biswajit Deb

Kolkata, May 29 (SocialNews.XYZ) In an explosive critique of the previous Trinamool Congress administration and its functioning in West Bengal, senior party leader Biswajit Deb on Friday remarked that if the Lok Sabha polls were conducted after the RG Kar controversy, the party would not have managed to even win nine seats.

Speaking to IANS, Deb, who is also the Advocate General of Mizoram, listed the reasons for Trinamool's electoral setback, highlighting ignorance of ground reality, communication gap with grassroots workers, and administrative failures, including corruption, as the key issues.

"First is rampant corruption, second is I-PAC, and third is the RG Kar issue. If the parliamentary elections had been held after the RG Kar issue, forget about 29 seats, the TMC would not have been able to win even nine seats."

Deb acknowledged that some party leaders could understand that things were slowly going out of hand at the ground level.

"It is a result of overconfidence and too much pride. They (Trinamool's leadership) could not realise the ground reality. The people of Bengal were fed up over the last five years due to the rampant corruption that was going on. There was corruption in every department and among ministers. MPs and MLAs were arrested and taken into custody," he said.

"We saw that some of them were re-nominated and allowed to contest again before they had cleared themselves in a court of law. People did not like this; they were disgusted. Around 26,000 teachers lost their jobs, and the state government did nothing.”

Emphasising that the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital was the most important factor, he said: "(Trinamool supremo) Mamata Banerjee was unable to read the writing on the wall. She was unable to tackle the situation or put the accused behind bars, which was the demand of the people, leading to massive protests across India."

Deb blamed Trinamool General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee's "pride" and "statements" as another reason for the party's defeat.

"His statements were not liked by the people. There was a communication gap between the workers and the leadership. In fact, there was no communication at all," he stated.

Moreover, he accused the political consultancy I-PAC for "misleading" the party.

"I-PAC was the only source of communication between the leaders, workers, Abhishek Banerjee, and Mamata Banerjee. There were allegations that I-PAC demanded money from Trinamool workers in exchange for nominations to the Assembly or the Lok Sabha," he alleged.

Deb claimed that both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee knew about the allegations and questioned them for not trying to address the matter.

He stressed that the party leadership should have been aware of the sentiments of its workers.

"Mamata Banerjee depended too much on Abhishek Banerjee, and he, in turn, tried to turn the party into a corporate entity. A political party cannot function like a corporate organisation. It has to function from the grassroots level, but grassroots workers were neither recognised nor given proper respect."

Deb highlighted that because of this communication gap with workers, the party lost control at the grassroots level.

The veteran Trinamool Congress leader maintained that, apart from other issues, polarisation was an important factor in the Bengal polls.

"The way Mamata Banerjee tried to polarise one section of the community, it was very dangerous. She was playing with fire. As a result of this, the 'Sanatani Hindus' got united amongst themselves. They were scared that if Trinamool returned to power in 2026, they may have to leave Bengal," he stated.

About whether he has decided to quit the Trinamool, Deb said: "I am just trying to highlight the reasons for the humiliating defeat of the Trinamool Congress. With regard to quitting or not, I will take a call in the next two days."

Source: IANS