Dinesh Trivedi, the veteran politician who resigned from TMC as well as from the party’s Rajya Sabha seat a few days ago, said that he is not alone who is unhappy with the party; other leaders in TMC feel the same.
“It was my inner voice, I couldn’t have been sitting in Parliament as a mute spectator over what is going on, especially in Bengal. There was no forum where I could have raised my voice; I would have done injustice to Bengal,” said Trivedi to news agency ANI.
I am not alone, if you ask the people in the party they feel the same. We had joined the party by looking at Mamata Banerjee but now it’s no longer her party: Dinesh Trivedi to ANI, who tendered his resignation as TMC MP in Rajya Sabha
— ANI (@ANI) February 12, 2021
“I am not alone, if you ask the people in the party they feel the same. We had joined the party by looking at Mamata Banerjee but now it’s no longer her party,” Trivedi added.
The exit of Trivedi, one of the tallest leader from West Bengal, will start another wave of an exodus of TMC leaders. By the time the state goes for polls, TMC would be left only with the Banerjee family and a few Islamic fundamentalists, and of course Prashant Kishore – the man who destroyed the party.
In the last few months, Mamata Banerjee-led TMC has suffered a massive exodus of good leaders. Mukul Roy, who was number two in the party, was the first to leave in 2017. After that, the party held itself together for the next few years, but as the 2021 Bengal Assembly Election nears, it seems that the party will be left only with goons and Islamic fundamentalists.
Almost all senior ministers of the party including very influential ones like Suvendu Adhikari, Rajib Banerjee, and Laxmi Ratan Shukla, who can swing the results on many seats, have left TMC. Apart from that, influential MLAs like Vaishali Dalmiya – daughter of industrialist Dalmiya – have also left the party to join BJP.
So, currently, TMC has neither the support of industrialists nor of the popular leaders. The popular faces as well as the leaders who could bring ‘clean money’ to fight elections have left the party to join BJP. The latest blow party suffered is of Dinesh Trivedi, the senior leader who is considered an institution of Indian politics, has also resigned and was welcomed by the saffron party.
The importance of Dinesh Trivedi is often underplayed due to his visible friction with Mamata Banerjee over the past few years. Yet, the fact that Mamata Banerjee decided to send Trivedi to the Rajya Sabha despite him losing his 2019 bid to enter the Lok Sabha speaks volumes about the value which came attached with the founding member of the TMC.
After storming to power in West Bengal in 2011, Mamata Banerjee had quit her post of the Union Railway Minister. And who did she choose as her successor? None other than Dinesh Trivedi. Trivedi was trusted with the most important portfolio acquired by TMC, he was indeed second to no one but Mamata.
Being the master orator, and election strategist that he is, Dinesh Trivedi quitting TMC comes as the latest shock to Mamata Banerjee – a gigantic one at that. Already reeling under the pressure of an unending exodus of leaders to the BJP, the TMC’s electoral fortunes in West Bengal are shrinking with each passing day. Dinesh Trivedi’s exit from the party is not just a major loss for Mamata Banerjee, but also a real-time indicator of the political winds blowing towards BJP in the poll-bound state.
The 2021 West Bengal Elections seem to be a repetition of the Assam Assembly Elections of 2016 – in which the most popular senior leaders of the Congress, including the master politician Himanta Biswa Sharma, left the party to join BJP.
Congress lost badly in Assam in the 2016 Assembly Elections and TMC is about to meet the same fate. The party is now fully dependent on Muslim community votes and even that is now under attack from AIMIM, led by Owaisi. Like AIUDF cut the Muslim votes in Assam and helped BJP to win many seats, AIMIM would cut TMC’s Muslim votes in Bengal and help BJP gain two-third of the majority.