Congress Turns Its Back On Mamata | But Why BJP Needs TMC Rebels Desperately? | TMC-Congress Merger

[00:00:02]Gaddaro There are some Narendra Modi here.

[00:00:20]There are some Amit Shah here.

[00:00:22]>> [music] >> There are some ED here. There are some CBI here.

[00:00:31]And Mira some Mama to Mama try.

[00:01:05]I will request to Didi if you depend upon the Abhishek Banerjee, then you remain with the Abhishek Banerjee.

[00:01:12]Leave.

[00:01:16]>> 30 years ago Mamata Banerjee left Congress.

[00:01:19]She believed Congress had lost its way, lost Bengal, lost its spine.

[00:01:26]So, she built something new from scratch.

[00:01:30]With her name, with her face, with her fight.

[00:01:35]Today, some of her own MPs want to return to that party.

[00:01:40]Others want BJP.

[00:01:42]Others insist they are the real Trinamool Congress.

[00:01:48]And for the first time in this entire crisis, the interesting question is no longer who is leaving.

[00:01:54]The interesting question is if everybody wants to leave, why would anyone want to take them?

[00:02:01]>> [music] >> For days, Delhi has been buzzing with one idea.

[00:02:06]Congress and Trinamool, a reunion, a homecoming, the tributary returning to the river it came from.

[00:02:14]Beautiful imagery, terrible politics.

[00:02:17]Because what exactly does Congress gain here?

[00:02:21]A party that just lost Bengal, a leadership facing open rebellion, a movement where 64 MLAs, three Rajya Sabha resignations in a single week, and 20 MPs at BJP's doorstep are now the daily forecast.

[00:02:36]And then, there is Mamata Banerjee herself.

[00:02:40]When she was in Congress, she fought Congress. When she aligned with BJP, she fought BJP.

[00:02:47]When she returned to the opposition, she weakened Congress in Bengal. The one thing Mamata Banerjee has never successfully done in 30 years of public life is take instructions from anyone.

[00:02:58]And this is not Sonia Gandhi's UPA anymore. The old UPA was a cabinet of regional kings and queens.

[00:03:06]Everybody had space. Everybody had autonomy. Everyone managed their territory.

[00:03:12]Today's Congress is more centralized.

[00:03:15]Rahul, Kharge, a clearer command structure.

[00:03:20]Can anyone seriously imagine someone who ran a state as supreme authority for three terms reporting to a party committee?

[00:03:32]But there is a deeper warning Congress would be wise to absorb. Not about Mamata, about what brought TMC here.

[00:03:39]Bengal became a competition to consolidate communities. One side mobilizing Hindu votes, one side protecting minority votes.

[00:03:48]The more explicitly one side said, "These are my voters." [music] The more easily the other side said, "Then these are mine."

[00:03:58]Polarization isn't engineered. Sometimes it's [music] just invited. If Congress absorbs TMC's political model alongside its MPs, it may inherit TMC's fate as well. [music] Notice what just happened. The rebels don't believe they left Trinamool. They believe Trinamool left them.

[00:04:50]>> [music] >> And that is the most dangerous stage of any political collapse.

[00:04:54]When two factions stop arguing about the future and start arguing about who owns the house.

[00:05:02]Officially, this is about ideology, about party structure, about Abhishek's corporate model. Unofficially, it increasingly looks like hierarchy because every collapsing party eventually reaches the same threshold.

[00:05:15]>> [music] >> Politics becomes personal. Personal becomes political. And nobody remembers where the argument began.

[00:05:23]>> He cannot be my boss. Such an arrogant attitude cannot be my leader at all. I will request the Didi, if you depend upon the Abhishek Banerjee, then you remain with the Abhishek Banerjee. Leave me.

[00:05:45]>> We are not afraid. When your most soldier starts measuring respect instead of debating ideas, the crisis has already moved upstairs. Now, the question everybody is avoiding. For years, these same MPs called BJP authoritarian, anti-Bengal, dangerous, communal, a threat to the constitution.

[00:06:04]Some of them were more aggressive against BJP from Parliament than Congress ever was.

[00:06:09]So, why is BJP welcoming them?

[00:06:12]The answer is not ideology. The answer is arithmetic.

[00:06:16]In election rallies, politics is ideology. In Parliament, politics is mathematics.

[00:06:24]Delimitation, one nation, one election, constitutional amendments, bills that require numbers beyond the current NDA count.

[00:06:33]When important legislation needs to pass, yesterday's enemies can become tomorrow's temporary partners.

[00:06:41]Congress may not want Mamata. BJP may not fully trust the defectors.

[00:06:46]The rebels claim the real Trinamool is theirs. The loyalists claim the same. 30 years ago, she walked out of one party to build something that would outlast her.

[00:06:55]Today, that something is asking the most basic question a political organization can ask.

[00:07:00]Not who leads it, not who wins with it, but what it was ever supposed to be.

[00:07:05]Because when a party forgets the answer to that question, its leaders start looking for somewhere else to exist. And Bengal is watching exactly that happen in real time.

[00:07:16]You were watching Fault Lines. I am Abhijit.