Rivalry between the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress (MAITC), the Democratic Trinamool Congress (DTC) and the faction of Trinamool MPs who have joined the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) intensified on Friday as parties in West Bengal geared up for the municipal elections scheduled for Kolkata and Howrah in November.
The parties said poll notifications were likely to be issued within a few days, leaving little time for candidate selection and campaigning.
“Local leaders loyal to Mamata Banerjee will receive priority during candidate selection. There may be some talks on seat adjustment with the Congress if the situation demands but it is too early to speak on that,” a leader from the Mamata camp said, requesting anonymity after a meeting at the former chief minister’s residence in Kalighat.
“Although Congress state committees select municipal poll nominees, issues such as alliances are decided by our central leaders. No such talks have taken place so far,” Pradesh Congress general secretary Asutosh Chatterjee said.
Kunal Ghosh, a Kolkata MLA from the Mamata faction, targeted the NCPI, a self-declared ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government.
Ghosh posted a photo of wall graffiti in which the face of Kolkata North Lok Sabha member Sudip Bandopadhyay — the leader of the Trinamool MPs who joined the NCPI — was covered with black paint. In the graffiti found in a neighbourhood in Shyambazar, Bandopadhyay was flanked by Union home minister Amit Shah and state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya. The graffiti featuring the two BJP leaders was untouched.
“I don’t know who disfigured the graffiti but whoever did should not spare the other traitors in our party,” Ghosh said.
The DTC, led by Ritabrata Banerjee, announced that it would not form an alliance with the NCPI.
“We are the real Trinamool. We will contest on our own,” DTC president Arup Roy said after a party meeting.
On October 20, the 20 former Trinamool MPs in the NCPI sought more time from Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to respond to petitions filed by the MAITC seeking their disqualification from the Lower House.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which controls 209 of Bengal’s 294 Assembly seats, held its first preparatory meeting in the presence of central leaders in Kolkata on Friday.
“Our candidates will be selected based on their proven performance. People from other parties will not be entertained,” said Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar, who is heading the BJP’s election committee for the Kolkata polls.
The NCPI had earlier expressed eagerness to contest the civic body polls as a BJP ally, but Majumdar said his party would contest all the seats. On Friday, Majumdar also ruled out fielding Trinamool councillors who won the last election if they switched camps now.
The civic bodies in both Kolkata and Howrah are being run by state-appointed administrators. The Trinamool councillors and the mayor resigned in Kolkata in May following the party’s defeat to the BJP in the Assembly polls. No election has been held in the Howrah Municipal Corporation since 2018 because of complications arising from delimitation rules.
“The BJP will not have allies. Our candidates will contest all seats,” Ritesh Tiwari, co-convenor of the BJP’s four-member poll committee for Kolkata, told HT.
In August this year, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed two bills to increase the number of civic wards from 144 to 209 in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area and from 50 to 68 under the Howrah Municipal Corporation’s (HMC) jurisdiction. Presenting the bills in the Assembly, state urban development and municipal affairs minister Agnimitra Paul said delimitation would create smaller wards with lower populations, making the delivery of civic services to citizens faster and easier.