Behind Mamata, Adhir face-off, a history of bad blood, from Bengal Cong days through TMC rise

With West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee turning up the heat on the Congress and declaring that her party would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls alone, the Opposition INDIA alliance seems to be unravelling in the state, where the CPI(M)-led Left has already been up in arms against the TMC.

The equations between the state Congress unit and the TMC have also been tense and acrimonious, with the relations between Mamata and West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury marked by hostility and bitterness for many years.

The 69-year-old three-time CM, Mamata had floated the TMC after quitting the Congress on January 1, 1998. Former Union minister Adhir, 67, who has been a five-term MP from Berhampore since 1999, is also the Congress’s Leader in the Lok Sabha.

On the relations between Mamata and Adhir, several TMC and Congress leaders echo a common refrain: “Their ties have always been antagonistic, and they have remained poles apart.”

According to a veteran Congress leader, who had been a colleague of both Mamata and Adhir in the grand old party, said, “The two leaders were never in the same boat. When Mamata rebelled against then PCC chief Somen Mitra-led group in the late 1990s and went on to establish TMC, Adhir was with the Somen faction along with other senior leaders like Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi. Ironically, several Congress leaders, including Somen himself, later joined TMC and became MP but Adhir never joined TMC nor got close to Mamata ever.”

In the 2011 Bengal Assembly elections, Mamata spearheaded the TMC to a resounding victory with the Congress’s support to end the Left’s 34-year rule. In December 2012, a Congress minister in the Mamata