New Delhi, Aug 25 (SocialNews.XYZ) The battle for the "real Trinamool" title is turning dramatic with every episode that unfolds in West Bengal's political theatre since the poll results in May where a rebellion within the party has created two distinct factions in the state Assembly, each claiming to be the legitimate inheritor of the party's legacy, and is now being fought on streets to build a larger narrative.
In the State Assembly, the "rebel" group, reportedly enjoying the support of enough "Trinamool" MLAs, has earned its leader Ritabrata Banerjee recognition as the Leader of Opposition.
The next battleground was on the streets of Kolkata on July 21, observed as the Martyrs' Day, a date marking Trinamool Congress founder-Chairperson Mamata Banerjee's most powerful annual rally commemorating the 1993 police firing on Youth Congress activists she was then leading.
And now, the battle moves to Friday's Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) Foundation Day, when -- like the July event -- both factions intend to celebrate it with grandeur, separately.
Like in earlier instances, it will be subject to close scrutiny by politicians and analysts alike where the respective leaders' ability to mobilise crowds and their individual speeches will be the subject of debates.
On one side is Mamata Banerjee's "Kalighat faction", rooted in her personal charisma and the party's founding legacy.
On the other is Ritabrata Banerjee's faction, which has secured numerical strength in the State Assembly and institutional recognition.
The Kalighat group is rooting that the State Assembly numbers alone would not erase the emotional and historical legitimacy Mamata embodies. This faction is built around Mamata's persona, where she has embodied the party's identity with fiery protests against the Left Front to her eventual triumph in 2011.
Her leadership style is deeply personal and centralised, with decisions often flowing directly from her residence in Kalighat. This has led to the coining of a saying that within the Trinamool there was but "one post" while the rest were "lampposts": implying that all other leaders shone only in her reflected light.
Ritabrata Banerjee's faction, by contrast, has positioned itself as the pragmatic inheritor of Trinamool's organisational machinery. Its strength lies in numbers, with close to 60 MLAs having backed him. His recognition as Leader of Opposition has given the faction institutional legitimacy. His leadership style is drawn more from the collective strength of defected leaders like Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Anubrata Mondal, Javed Khan, among others.
Once considered among Mamata's inner circle, such names help the faction demonstrate its organisational capacity by mobilising crowds as it did for the July 21 event, contesting the symbolism associated with her.
Ritabrata's faction had then organised a parallel rally at Mayo Road, around three kilometres from Mamata's gathering at Kolkata's Birla Planetarium.
Newspaper reports said that both rallies drew significant crowds, where the spectacle of two rival Trinamool rallies on the same day underscored the depth of the split and the intensity of the struggle for ownership.
Now, Friday's event will mark a symbolic grip over TMCP, crucial for a hold in college and university unions.
Either side feels that whoever controls TMCP will not only command the loyalty of young activists but also shape the ideological narrative of the "real Trinamool". The battle is reminiscent of the Shiv Sena split in Maharashtra, where the Election Commission and courts eventually had to decide which faction was the "original".
In West Bengal, too, the question of legitimacy may ultimately be settled by institutions rather than rallies or Assembly numbers.
But for now, whichever faction secures the larger student wing will then portray itself as the "true inheritor of Trinamool's legacy". Until then, West Bengal will continue to witness a political drama where history, numbers, and symbolism collide in the quest to define the "real Trinamool".
Source: IANS
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