NEW DELHI: Will Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-SP) return to the Congress? Amid the unfolding crisis in the Trinamool Congress, there is strong speculation in political circles about the parties that broke away from the Congress planning to return to its fold.
While Congress Organisation General Secretary KC Venugopal on Thursday rejected the Trinamool merger talks as “baseless rumours”, party’s senior leader in Maharashtra Nana Patole has dropped a clear hint that the move may be afoot.
Patole has said that the “like-minded parties” are preparing to merge with the Congress. “Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee are making up their mind for a merger with the Congress,” Patole told reporters insisting that it will not be an alliance, but a merger.
Patole went on to claim that a proposal for NCP-SP’s merger has already been made by Sharad Pawar and is in the works.
“The proposal from the NCP, from Pawar Saheb, had already been given earlier but got delayed due to some reasons. But I feel that with whatever is happening in the country’s politics right now… to stop the large-scale division of votes… all parties that have secular, pluralistic ideologies should unite,” he stated.
“This process has now begun at the national level, and whether it is the Trinamool Congress or Pawar Saheb all are now showing the willingness to merge with Congress,” Patole claimed.
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Raut’s Pitch For Merger
A few days ago, similar sentiment was echoed by Shiv Sena UBT leader Sanjay Raut when he urged Sharad Pawar to “take the lead” in merging the smaller parties, which came into existence after splitting away from the Congress, back with the Grand Old Party.
“Congress has to be strong, and leaders of smaller parties that emerged from it must understand the situation,” Raut had said.
Calling it a “good proposal”, NCP-SP leader and Sharad Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule, had said that only time will tell what happens next. “Let it rain first, then we’ll see whether to take an umbrella or a raincoat,” she had said in a cryptic response without rejecting Raut’s proposal.
Gehlot’s Call For Return
Adding to the political chatter, senior Congress leader and former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has also called on the smaller parties to merge with the Congress and accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader.
“What Sanjay Raut said has merit. The time has come. All those parties that became regional parties after separating from the Congress should rejoin, and they should wholeheartedly accept Rahul Gandhi as the leader,” Gehlot said.
“There should be a message across the country that the leader of the INDIA alliance is Rahul Gandhi. This message should be clear-cut. Then the people will make you successful. They see that on one side is Narendra Modi ji and on the other side is Rahul Gandhi ji. If there is a clear-cut message that all political parties have together accepted Rahul Gandhi as their leader, then you will see that the voting pattern in the country will change,” the former chief minister stated.
Both Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee had broken away from the Congress and had floated their regional outfits. While Mamata Banerjee started Trinamool Congress in 1998 after breaking away from the Congress, Sharad Pawar founded the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 1999. He established the party alongside PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar after being expelled from the Congress over the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s “foreign origin”. Tariq Anwar later returned to the Congress and is currently an MP.
Sharad Pawar’s NCP suffered the similar fate as Trinamool is confronted with today when Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar led a rebellion against the patriarch in 2023. He claimed and won the NCP name and symbol after securing the support of the majority of party’s MLAs and went on to ally with the BJP & Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and nationally.
Congress Wants TMC To Make The First Move
The rumour mill was set abuzz after back-to-back TMC-Congress meetings this week– first of Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee with Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday and then between TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee with the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday.
According to sources, at the Wednesday’s meeting that lasted for one and a half hours, Abhishek Banerjee conveyed that Trinamool wants a strong alliance and accepts Rahul Gandhi’s leadership in the opposition grouping.
Congress has made clear that any proposal for a merger must come from the Trinamool and that it is not pushing for such a move
Umakant Lakhera is a Senior Journalist and Political Commentator
