Bengal Congress Chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Replaced: ‘High Command’ Capitulation To Mamata Banerjee Could Spell Doom For Party

The Congress ‘high command’ has ultimately capitulated to Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee and replaced Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury with a pliant Subhankar Sarkar as the state party chief.

Chowdhury, a staunch critic of Banerjee and her party, was the force behind the Congress-Left alliance in Bengal. Banerjee had often named him as the stumbling block to a Congress-Trinamool electoral understanding in the state. 

Even though the Trinamool Congress is a constituent of the Congress-led INDI Alliance at the national level, the two parties failed to arrive at a seat-sharing arrangement for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll.

Though that was mainly because of the Trinamool chief’s refusal to stitch a three-way alliance with the Congress and the Left Front, Banerjee blamed Chowdhury for his refusal to part ways with the Left and join hands with the Trinamool.

Banerjee is viscerally opposed to the Left, which she dislodged from power in Bengal in 2011. She wanted the Congress to ditch the Left in Bengal and join hands with her. But the Congress unit in the state, led by Chowdhury, vehemently opposed it. 

In the last Lok Sabha election, Chowdhury, a vocal critic of the Trinamool and Banerjee's style of functioning, carried out a high-pitched campaign against the involvement of Trinamool leaders in various scams, misgovernance in Bengal, and the use of money and muscle power by the ruling party in the state.

Banerjee had often complained to central Congress leaders, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, against Chowdhury, who is a Gandhi family loyalist. 

On his part, Chowdhury had argued that an alliance with the Trinamool in Bengal will lead to the decimation of the Congress in the state. He had cited the earlier alliance with the Trinamool (the two parties had fought the 2011 assembly polls as allies) that was a bitter experience for the Congress. 

“Despite being allies, the Trinamool launched attacks on our party workers and supporters and enticed or forced many of our functionaries, including MLAs (members of the legislative assembly), to leave the Congress and join the Trinamool. Those who refused were implicated in false cases or were physically attacked and their properties looted,” Chowdhury had told Swarajya earlier this year. 

Chowdhury had told his party’s central leadership, including Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, that an alliance with the Trinamool in Bengal would sully the image of the Congress in the state. 

The Trinamool Congress, he had argued, was closely associated with corruption, scams, bad governance, and hooliganism. The image of the Congress would suffer if it aligned with the Trinamool. 

Chowdhury had argued that the Congress, despite not winning seats, has a loyal support base in Bengal, especially in districts like Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, Dakshin Dinajpur, and Birbhum. 

“We should focus on nurturing this support base, projecting ourselves as a responsible and mature political force, and emerge as a viable alternative to the Trinamool as well as the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party),” Chowdhury had told Swarajya. 

After repeated complaints from Banerjee, Chowdhury was asked by his party’s ‘high command’ to tone down his criticism of the Bengal Chief Minister and her party. But he often ignored that counsel and continued to spew fire at Banerjee and her party. 

The Chief Minister then made it her mission to inflict a crushing electoral defeat on Chowdhury, who was the leader of the Congress in the last Lok Sabha (2019-2024). She cleverly nominated former Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan, a Gujarati Muslim, as her party’s candidate from Chowdhury’s turf — the Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency — that has a large percentage of Muslims.

Chowdhury, who made his electoral debut as an MLA from the Nabagram seat (Murshidabad district) in 1996, won the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat for the first time in 1999. He retained the seat in 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019. 

The five-time Member of Parliament (MP) suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of debutant Pathan by more than 85,000 votes. 

Congress' Declining Political Fortunes In Bengal

The Congress managed to win only one seat (Malda Dakshin), and its vote share was an inglorious 4.68 per cent in this year’s Lok Sabha election.

In the 2019 general election, the Congress vote share in Bengal was 5.61 per cent, and the party won two of the 42 seats in the state. 

In the 2014 contest, the Congress won four seats, and its vote share was nearly 10 per cent, while in the 2009 election that it fought in alliance with the Trinamool Congress, it won six seats and garnered a vote share of 13.45 per cent. 

In the 2011 assembly election that the Congress fought in alliance with the Trinamool, the former won 42 seats, and its vote share was 9.09 per cent (a decline of 5.62 percentage points from the 2006 assembly election). But a good number of Congress MLAs were enticed or forced to switch over to the Trinamool within months of the election. 

The 2016 assembly election, which the Congress fought in alliance with the Left, saw the party winning 44 seats and its vote share increasing to 12.25 per cent. 

But in the assembly election held five years later (2021), the Congress-Left alliance drew a blank. The Congress (and the Left) failed to win a single seat, and the Congress’ vote share plummeted to a miserable 2.93 per cent. 

Thus, though the Congress fared modestly in the 2016 assembly election that it fought in alliance with the Left, its performance in the 2021 assembly election and the 2014, 2019, and 2024 Lok Sabha polls (all fought in alliance with the Left) was dismal. 

Voices Against Chowdhury Gain Momentum

After Chowdhury’s embarrassing defeat by political greenhorn Pathan from Baharampur a few months ago, pro-Trinamool voices within the Congress started growing stronger, and demands for Chowdhury’s replacement started becoming stronger. 

But Chowdhury, who knows Banerjee’s nature very well, had been vehemently against the idea of his party using the Trinamool as a crutch to gain strength. 

“The innate nature of Mamata Banerjee is to stifle all opposition. She wants Trinamool to be the only political force in the state and cannot tolerate the existence of any other party in the state. That is why she poached our MLAs after the 2011 assembly elections even though we were her allies,” Chowdhury had told Swarajya earlier this year. 

What Banerjee Told Congress ‘High Command’

Banerjee told the Congress central leadership that the INDI Alliance would never be strong if its constituents fought against each other in the states. She argued that the Congress, as the leader of the alliance, has to be accommodating and has to accord primacy to the other parties in the alliance in their respective turfs.

She said the Congress should acknowledge the fact that Bengal is a Trinamool stronghold, and the Congress should not fight her party in the state. She told the Congress leadership that they should be magnanimous and willing to sacrifice its “minor stake” in states like Bengal for the sake of coalition ‘dharma’.

But, say Congress leaders who have been against an alliance with the Trinamool in Bengal, Banerjee’s arguments reek of hypocrisy. 

“She went on the offensive against us (the Congress) in Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, and Goa in the recent past. Her party had no presence in those states, but she enticed Congress leaders to break away from the party and join her party in those states. That is how the Trinamool came to have a presence in the three North Eastern states and Goa,” said a senior Congress leader. 

They added that Banerjee had no qualms about fighting the Congress in those states, thus harming the Congress’ electoral prospects. “She cannot say that the Congress should not fight the Trinamool in her home state, but she would be free to break the Congress and fight it in other states where she has no base. That is sheer double standards,” a central Congress leader who had supported Chowdhury’s stance told Swarajya. 

Why Congress Capitulated

The Congress ‘high command’ did not want to antagonise Banerjee beyond a point. The party’s central leadership knows that a miffed Mamata can help the BJP pass critical bills in Parliament by abstaining. After all, Banerjee was part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the past and had even served as a Union Minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government. 

The Congress ‘high command’ is well aware of Banerjee’s mercurial and whimsical nature and did not want a situation where she walks out of the INDI Alliance. The Congress desperately needs to retain opposition unity and knows that, as a united bloc, the INDI Alliance wields a lot of influence that the Congress will not be able to do on its own. 

The party leadership, after weighing the pros and cons of allowing the party unit in the state to take a pro- or anti-Trinamool stand, decided that the party's national interests far outweigh the interests of the party unit in Bengal.

“There is, as it is, little prospect of the Congress reviving itself in Bengal in the near future. But a lot is at stake for the party at the national level, and not only keeping the INDI Alliance intact but also strengthening it is important for the party. Since the Trinamool Congress is one of the main pillars of the INDI Alliance, keeping Mamata Banerjee happy is of utmost importance. Opposition unity is the only way to defeat the BJP,” said the Congress leader.

That is why the Congress high command decided to sacrifice its marginal interests in Bengal and replace Chowdhury with Sarkar, who, immediately after being appointed the Congress state chief, said the doors of his party are “always open to alliances.” 

Sarkar, who is known to be a strong advocate of friendly ties with the Trinamool Congress and had spoken in favour of a tie-up with Banerjee’s party for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, has never won an election.

The new state party chief also said he would cooperate with the Trinamool Congress government to protect and promote the interests of Bengal. “The Trinamool is a political party, and if it’s able to maintain a democratic setup in the state, there is no logic in opposing that,” Sarkar told reporters at his maiden press meet.

Though Sarkar said he would not tolerate attacks on his party workers in the state and “will oppose any party which doesn’t believe in giving space to opposition parties,” Congress insiders believe that he made those statements only for effect. 

“He (Sarkar) is close to some senior Trinamool leaders and will steer the state unit towards close ties with the Congress. He will work towards an alliance with the Congress in the 2026 assembly elections,” a state party leader who was a candidate from a seat in South Bengal in the last Lok Sabha poll told Swarajya. 

Why This Is Bad News For Congress In Bengal

While Chowdhury kept his party folk together and rallied them on an anti-Trinamool platform, Sarkar will steer his party state unit on the opposite course. 

Congress functionaries, especially at the middle and lower levels, and party workers and supporters will soon get demoralised and either leave the party or succumb to pressure from the Trinamool and join them. 

The new state party chief is sure to pack the entire organisation, especially at the middle and senior levels, with people who are comfortable with friendly Congress-Trinamool ties and advocate an alliance with the ruling party in Bengal. 

Those who oppose such an alliance will find themselves sidelined and may eventually leave the party or become inactive. 

Banerjee is also sure to insist on making the Congress in Bengal a ‘B’ team of her party in the state. She will insist on only those who advocate close ties or an alliance with Trinamool being appointed to senior posts in the state Congress committee. 

At the same time, the Trinamool leadership will deploy its considerable muscle and money power to lure promising Congress functionaries away from the party and into the Trinamool. 

All that will only lead to further marginalisation of the party in the state. The Congress sorely lacks charismatic leaders in Bengal. Chowdhury was one of the few remaining Congress leaders who had charisma, a deep understanding of Bengal’s affairs, a clean image, good organisational skills, and a pan-Bengal presence. 

The Congress ‘high command’ will realise, sooner rather than later, that replacing Chowdhury with the pro-Trinamool Sarkar was a wrong move. But by then it would be too late since the state party unit would have travelled a significant distance down the path to its decimation in Bengal.