NEW DELHI: The big victory for Congress in alliance with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is turning sour for the party. Strong dissidence within the state Congress unit is building up against PCC chief Manas Bhunia, barely a week since the new government took over ousting the 34-year-old Left Front.
The dissidence is so strong that senior state leaders are apprehensive about a section of Congress MLAs leaving to join TMC in the lure of posts according to party sources. Improving the party's tally from 21 in 2006 to 42 in 2011 seems to be costing Congress high.
The split in Congress suits Mamata perfectly. She herself had come out of the party and would like to strengthen it further at the cost of Congress. The last split in the Bengal Congress was in 1998, when a big chunk crossed over to TMC.
Bhunia arrived in Delhi on Wednesday to finalise the list of five MLAs who would be ministers of state in Bengal. But dissidents say that Bhunia will also get approval of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for continuing as state party president even though he joined as a cabinet minister from Congress in Mamata's team.
According to senior state Congress leaders, nobody was consulted about the names that were shortlisted for posts of ministers of state, just as there was no discussion about who should be CLP leader. Central leader A K Antony announced the name of Abu Hena soon after addressing the MLAs at the PCC headquarters in Kolkata on May 19. Hena is the only other minister from the party in Mamata's cabinet.
"This goes against the 'one man, one post' concept in the party which could have been ignored only in cases of leaders like Pranab Mukherjee or Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, who have a national stature," a senior Congress leader told TOI. "Bhunia's case is not the same. He wants to keep everything for himself," the leader said, adding that, "Pranabda used to run the PCC with a core committee which included most of the senior leaders here."
Senior leaders in the state like Pradip Bhattacharya, D P Roy, Abdul Mannan, Rabindranath Chatterjee, Ajay Deb, Gyan Singh Sohanpal, Kazi Abdul Gaffar, Mohd Sohrab, Sabina Yasmin and Sankar Singh, are feeling ignored, not just because they have not got any post but because they have not been consulted on any decision, it is learnt.
The only other leaders who could have fought for the rest of the party in the state are Adhir Choudhury and Deepa Dasmunsi, who are lying low since they had apparently backed rebel candidates in their constituencies for the polls.
"On May 19, Anthony adressed MLAs and after a while announced the name of Hena as the CLP leader, unlike central observers who usually talk to MLAs in-camera and take a call," complained a Congress leader.
While some state leaders are reaching Delhi to speak to Mukherjee, party sources say the Congress high command goes by whatever Mukherjee has to say and it is not easy for the state leaders to get access to the central leadership.
The dissidence is so strong that senior state leaders are apprehensive about a section of Congress MLAs leaving to join TMC in the lure of posts according to party sources. Improving the party's tally from 21 in 2006 to 42 in 2011 seems to be costing Congress high.
The split in Congress suits Mamata perfectly. She herself had come out of the party and would like to strengthen it further at the cost of Congress. The last split in the Bengal Congress was in 1998, when a big chunk crossed over to TMC.
Bhunia arrived in Delhi on Wednesday to finalise the list of five MLAs who would be ministers of state in Bengal. But dissidents say that Bhunia will also get approval of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for continuing as state party president even though he joined as a cabinet minister from Congress in Mamata's team.
According to senior state Congress leaders, nobody was consulted about the names that were shortlisted for posts of ministers of state, just as there was no discussion about who should be CLP leader. Central leader A K Antony announced the name of Abu Hena soon after addressing the MLAs at the PCC headquarters in Kolkata on May 19. Hena is the only other minister from the party in Mamata's cabinet.
"This goes against the 'one man, one post' concept in the party which could have been ignored only in cases of leaders like Pranab Mukherjee or Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, who have a national stature," a senior Congress leader told TOI. "Bhunia's case is not the same. He wants to keep everything for himself," the leader said, adding that, "Pranabda used to run the PCC with a core committee which included most of the senior leaders here."
Senior leaders in the state like Pradip Bhattacharya, D P Roy, Abdul Mannan, Rabindranath Chatterjee, Ajay Deb, Gyan Singh Sohanpal, Kazi Abdul Gaffar, Mohd Sohrab, Sabina Yasmin and Sankar Singh, are feeling ignored, not just because they have not got any post but because they have not been consulted on any decision, it is learnt.
The only other leaders who could have fought for the rest of the party in the state are Adhir Choudhury and Deepa Dasmunsi, who are lying low since they had apparently backed rebel candidates in their constituencies for the polls.
"On May 19, Anthony adressed MLAs and after a while announced the name of Hena as the CLP leader, unlike central observers who usually talk to MLAs in-camera and take a call," complained a Congress leader.
While some state leaders are reaching Delhi to speak to Mukherjee, party sources say the Congress high command goes by whatever Mukherjee has to say and it is not easy for the state leaders to get access to the central leadership.
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