Bharat Bhushan | Merger Mirage: Trinamul & Congress Can’t Converge

Speculation about the merger of a collapsing Trinamul Congress (TMC) with the Congress Party is doing the rounds amongst the political chatterati.

There are good reasons for the Congress to avoid such a prospect. It will neither strengthen the Congress nor the INDIA bloc. Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee would be far better as an alliance partner rather than inside the Congress tent.

A weakened TMC is imploding both on its home turf of West Bengal and in Parliament. The Congress would not gain a powerful ally but remnants of a party in freefall. A merger will also bring with it the TMC’s baggage of alleged corruption, misgovernance and nepotism. There is no reason why the party should actively court the controversies surrounding the teachers’ recruitment scam, the R.G. Kar rape-murder case and the ongoing investigations into the financial affairs of senior TMC leaders.

Local Congress leaders in West Bengal have already voiced their concern. Abdul Manan has gone so far as to say that mixing drain water and clean water will only pollute the clean water. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's criticism was more scathing: “The same Mamata Banerjee who once broke the Congress, ensuring it was wiped out from Bengal, now finds herself compelled to seek the support of the Gandhi family.” He rightly points out that Ms Banerjee built the TMC by cannibalising the Congress base in West Bengal. It is quite possible if the Congress leadership still goes ahead with the merger, whatever remains of the party in West Bengal may split.

Just because she is down and out, it must not be forgotten that she facilitated the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the TMC she handed the BJP a key ally in West Bengal, facilitating its entry into the state. By aligning with the BJP, her party gained national recognition and resources. She became a recognisable face from the eastern region in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government. And the BJP got a handy partner to challenge the Left Front in West Bengal. By crushing the Opposition space in West Bengal after coming to power in 2011, Ms Banerjee facilitated the shift of Left voters to the Right.

She left the BJP alliance after the Tehelka exposure in 2001, only to rejoin it two years later. Her opposition to the BJP was not, therefore, ideological but based on transactional convenience and when it suited her interests. The weakening of the Congress at the national level -- partially because of the erosion of its base in West Bengal -- opened the space for Narendra Modi's rise in 2014.

Notwithstanding the allegations that the BJP manipulated voter rolls in its favour in 2026, it was the political violence unleashed by the TMC on Opposition workers and the rent-seeking culture of its cadres that also turned the people against her party. The BJP’s packaging of the prevailing anti-incumbency into a desire for change resonated with large sections of the population.

Further, by consolidating Muslim voters tightly around the TMC, Ms Banerjee ended up inadvertently pushing the Hindu voters -- especially the OBCs and the lower castes -- towards the BJP.

All these factors combined led to the BJP rising from three Assembly seats in West Bengal in 2016 to ruling it ten years’ later with 208 seats -- more than a two-thirds majority. So, Ms Banerjee’s role as an aider and abetter in the BJP’s rise cannot be ignored.

Moreover, Ms Banerjee is bound to create a leadership crisis in the Congress, should the party take her in. She is not used to playing second-fiddle and was reluctant to accept the Congress’ leadership of the INDIA bloc. Her most egregious act was to ease the victory of Jagdeep Dhankhar in the vice-presidential election by compromising with the BJP. Her MPs were not present in full while the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed but she later indulged in performative anti-CAA posturing afterwards.

It may be difficult for the Congress to accommodate her leadership ambitions, given the aspirations of Congress leaders themselves, especially from the Gandhi family. It is also possible that she may not be able to deliver her own MPs, as defections continue. Moreover, her joining the Congress will certainly alienate the Left parties in the INDIA bloc, whose cadres -- along with Congress workers -- have been the chief targets of TMC violence in West Bengal.

Most importantly, the Congress gains nothing electorally. At its peak strength with 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, the TMC had fewer Lok Sabha MPs than the Congress. After its defeat in the state, the TMC’s gains are likely to be even more limited. The Congress will only inherit its liabilities in the state and nothing anywhere else in the country.

Ms Banerjee as an alliance partner of the Congress is a better strategic choice than TMC’s merger with the Congress. Alliance will preserve their respective vote banks and allow them to consolidate their respective voter bases and transfer votes where necessary. An alliance also allows for a geographical division of labour, while a single party structure will destroy the flexibility that electoral arithmetic demands in negotiating seat-sharing.

Even from Ms Banerjee’s own point of view, an alliance gives her a path to recovery. She is a fighter and can rebuild the TMC’s base in West Bengal. She can bring back her resurrected strength to the alliance. Permanently dissolving the TMC’s identity will deny her remaining loyal cadre a political home and could lead to further defections.

A continuing alliance with the TMC and its chastened leadership will preserve the identity of the INDIA bloc as a multi-party, pluralist and broad coalition. India has now come to accept the virtues of a coalition of diversity, representing and negotiating different regional interests and are unlikely to be attracted once again by a “two-party” system.

Lastly, Ms Banerjee’s ego, choleric temper, and petulance are likely to be more manageable in an alliance but toxic in a merger. An alliance allows for the demarcation of terrains but within the Congress, she will end up creating a party within a party -- a source of constant irritation and political trouble.

Having run the TMC with a firm hand, Ms Banerjee will undermine the current leadership of the Congress from day one. Therefore, the only workable arrangement the Congress can enter into with her that has some chance of success is an alliance, not a merger.

The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi