All Quiet on the 'West Bengal' Front: The Congress's Dilemma over Panchayat Poll Violence

Silence can be powerful. But in case of the West Bengal panchayat poll violence, it is reflecting the dilemma within the Congress.

While the fight over the poll violence is largely between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, too, claimed their party workers have been assaulted in state Congress president and leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s territory, Murshidabad.

Murshidabad has seen many incidents of crude bombs being hurled and attacks on workers and voters. While Chowdhury has been aggressive on ground, as he needs to take on the CM Mamata Banerjee-led government for his political survival, the Congress has been largely muted.

The first major reprimand of the violence came a day before counting. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge condemned the violence. But no names were taken, and the TMC was not mentioned strongly.

This elicited a strong response from the BJP. Party spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “What happened to the mohabbat ki dukaan? Why is the Congress not attacking the TMC for this violence?"

ALL FOR OPPOSITION UNITY

The TMC and Congress have an understanding that someone like Chowdhury has to attack Banerjee to stay politically relevant in Murshidabad, where both the parties are jostling for the same space. So the TMC has begun to accept the fact that Chowdhury’s politics requires him to attack them. This is in contrast to the earlier times, when the TMC had demanded that Chowdhury be replaced.

But the TMC has drawn a line where it comes to the poll violence issue. This has caught the Congress in a dilemma now.

With the Opposition unity being the main focus and the constituents ready to compromise, the Congress is not keen to ruffle the TMC’s feathers. It is aware that a frontal attack on Banerjee’s government for the poll violence could cast a shadow on the attempts for opposition unity.

This has led to barb from the BJP, accusing the Congress and Left of being the ‘B-team of the TMC’.

But the Congress doesn’t want to be dragged into this debate. Some battles need to be postponed to win the war, is what the Congress thinks.