Bengal Politics Tmc Split Md Salim Interview

With the Trinamool Congress (TMC) unravelling barely a month after losing power to the BJP in Bengal, the state’s politics is at a crossroads. CPI(M) state secretary, former MP and minister Md Salim speaks to The Indian Express about how his party will occupy the Opposition space and the ongoing turmoil in the TMC, among other issues. Excerpts:

Q: How do you see the sudden TMC split, barely just a month after elections?

This was expected. I had said it is going to melt faster than ice during the summer. Any political party without any ideology, programme or political goal cannot survive. Since the beginning, we had been saying it was a platform created to defeat the Left and pave the way for bringing the BJP and the RSS to the state. Once that is done, it has attained its expiry date.

It’s quite natural that it is happening. There is hardly any provision left in penal Acts that has not been violated by (former CM) Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek.

Q: Ritabrata Banerjee, who is leading the rebel TMC MLAs, was once with the CPI(M). What is your impression of him? Can he be a good Leader of the Opposition?

Rita means climate or seasons. So, he is a man of all seasons. If there is no genuine Opposition, how can there be a genuine LoP?

Q: Why did the CPI(M) also collapse suddenly in 2011? Do you think Singur and Nandigram were mistakes?

To remind you, it had not suddenly collapsed. In the 2016 elections, there was a situation where a Left comeback was possible. That’s why there was an unwritten agreement at the behest of the RSS to transfer votes in 100 seats. (BJP leader) Dilip Ghosh said this, as did (former MP CM) Uma Bharti. She did not say 100 seats but said that if Mamata is CM, she should remember it is due to the RSS.

For 15 years, the national media and the great liberal intellectuals of Delhi failed to understand the conduct of Mamata’s government and party – not only corruption but destruction of democratic space. Annihilating the Opposition. Utilising police, money, muscle power and use of franchisee politics. Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya had written in the EPW about it. It means that you paste the poster of the leaders – Abhishek and Mamata – and do what you like. The police will be associated with that and criminals will have full immunity. Corrupt practices – looting of natural resources, attacking the Opposition, and doing communal politics – were there.

The same thing (CM) Suvendu Adhikari has also learnt from the TMC camp. He is a product of that. There will be no regulation, no discipline, no inner democracy in the party and no faith for anything democratic. So, you have a pseudo-Opposition, a pseudo-political party, pseudo-political positioning but a strong organisation like I-PAC, and the media. We saw newspapers editors and anchors being installed overnight since 2011 just as an LoP has been installed from above now. The BJP also does not want space for Opposition.

Mamata played her role. She was a fighter, built the party, struggled hard, she became an administrator, made some populist decisions… that is okay. But everything was for her family and her successors.

The people being shown in the Opposition now were in the hideouts because of the people’s anger… they have been brought to the fore to make them look like Opposition politicians. But none of them has played any role in their lifetime as an Opposition. They have always been with power. They came to the TMC for power. Now the BJP also wants no Opposition, but some roles have been given like in TV serials and dramas. It is all scripted.

Do you see hope for the CPI(M) in the Falta result – you did well and secured more than four times the votes of the Congress – and the TMC split?

Yes, anybody can see that. If you know Bengal’s culture, politics and history, there is Opposition space. There are two types of politics – one of the palace and one of the streets. This coup is to find a hideout with the patronage of the ruling establishment. But street politics belongs to the Left and we are engaged right now in opposing bulldozer politics, standing by minorities, and against fuel price hikes. These people, on the other hand, only want to protect their personal illegal properties. So, they wanted some immunity from the establishment and it has been granted.

The BJP, like the CPI (M), is ideological, while the TMC is not. Do you think so, and will it affect the state?

Not only in Bengal, but throughout the country and the world, the ultimate battle is between the Left and the right wing.

What do you think about the first few decisions of the Adhikari government – be it detention centres for illegal immigrants or moves to curtail cow slaughter on Bakrid?

The neo-converts eat more beef and the neo-Christians go to the Church very frequently. Similarly, the “tatkal BJP” here has the urgency to prove that they are more Hindu than Hindutva.

Secondly, this is a government installed by Delhi, the Election Commission (EC), central forces, part of the judiciary, etc. They can’t make decisions independently. Bengal will never accept that for every decision they will have to go to Delhi in a chartered plane.

I remember that in the last years of Congress rule in UP (1980s), N D Tiwari was CM and his nickname became New Delhi Tiwari because he was frequently travelling from Lucknow to Delhi to take instructions. That did not help Congress and they soon lost hold of the state.

Here too, it is a government which will frequently take lessons and instructions from Nagpur or Delhi. They are already trying to implement the core agenda of the RSS with so much urgency. In Bengal, the opposition is coming not from Muslims but breeders and rearers of cattle because cattle rearing is going to be destroyed. They wanted to impose a Hindu-Muslim binary but the opposition came from people who are in this business and livelihood. So, cultural and economic questions will come together in Bengal – these aren’t separate compartments.

Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He ... Read More