TMC leaders to attend emergency meeting with Banerjee tomorrow

On Friday, supporters of Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched a social media campaign against the TMC's 'one-man-one-post' policy, which the party adopted last year during a massive organizational rejig.

Many in the party interpreted this as a backlash against the chief minister because Abhishek has been a vocal proponent of the strategy since becoming the TMC's national general secretary in June 2021. He resigned as president of the youth wing, arguing that younger people should be given a chance to ascend through the ranks.

The #OneManOnePost campaign sparked outrage on Facebook and Twitter, causing the TMC embarrassment after Mamata Banerjee chose to loosen the policy and nominate six members of the legislative assembly (MLA) for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections in November last year. Four of them were members of the previous board of directors. Firhad Hakim, a cabinet minister, and former Kolkata mayor was the most notable of these leaders, an old and valued aide of the chief minister. Hakim, who was previously a minister, was re-elected as mayor of Bengal's capital following his triumph.

Top TMC leaders said Banerjee summoned four of her followers, as well as Abhishek Banerjee, to an emergency meeting at her apartment on Saturday afternoon, despite the fact that Bengal will vote in four crucial civic bodies that day.

Hakim, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee, national vice-president Subrata Bakshi, and minister Aroop Biswas have all been invited to attend the meeting. Abhishek avoided the media when he returned from Goa on Friday, where he had been campaigning for the party's assembly elections.

“The one-man-one-post campaign is not endorsed by the TMC. Nobody should create confusion on social media. It is a crime. When the policy was adopted, it was also mentioned that the party chairperson can change it if the need arises. She has been re-elected chairperson again (during the recent organizational poll). She will call a meeting and formulate a new policy,” says Hakim

Not only did a slew of TMC youth wing leaders share the tweets, but other young Banerjee family members, including Abhishek's cousins Akash Banerjee, Agnisha Banerjee, and Aditi Gayen, also posted posts demanding its implementation. The majority of the posts included a video of the chief minister announcing the initiative last June.

“We all heard Mamata Banerjee saying that our party will implement the one-man-one-post policy. She is our supreme leader. If she says it will not be enforced, we will accept her decision,” Sudip Raha and Abhishek loyalists, said

A post was set up as a social media handle for minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, but it was quickly removed.

Abhishek, who introduced Kishor to the chief minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) snatched 18 of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, is spearheading the growth drive. The TMC contracted I-Pac to assist them to win 213 of 294 seats in the 2021 assembly elections.

I-PAC rapidly distanced itself from the initiative, claiming that it has no influence over the TMC's social media accounts.

“I-PAC doesn’t handle any digital properties of @AITCofficial or any of its leaders. Anyone making such a claim is either uninformed or is blatantly lying. AITC should look into if and how their digital properties and/or that of their leaders are being “allegedly (mis)used,” the company tweets.

TMC leaders have suggested that Kamarhati legislator Madan Mitra, who has made a number of provocative statements on social media in recent weeks, may face disciplinary action. He had been warned not to go live on Facebook earlier.

The BJP sneered at the ruling party, claiming that the alleged uprising was fabricated to promote Abhishek.

“While this fiasco may appear to be a conflict between Mamata Banerjee and her nephew over control of the party, we will not be surprised if all this is found to be staged to project Abhishek before the mantle is handed to him,”

Samik Bhattacharya, the Bengal BJP's chief spokesperson, said this.

Last week, two lists of candidates for elections to the state's 112 civic bodies were issued, revealing a schism between the young and the old.

Partha Chatterjee and Subrata Bakshi physically released the list approved by the chief minister on February 4. The second one was posted on the party's Facebook and Twitter pages almost simultaneously, resulting in an unprecedented disaster.

Disputes over 150 of the 2270 names on the two lists sparked riots in 19 Bengal districts where elections will be held in two stages this month. Because they were not chosen, at least two TMC district leaders left the party, while a former municipality chairman indicated that he would run on his own.

Mamata Banerjee empowered her team of old aides and senior ministers on February 7 to enforce her judgement in candidate selection and overturn the second list that was purportedly uploaded without her authorization.

The second list, according to Hakim, was published by persons who had been given unlawful access to the party's social media accounts by insiders.

The second list was not taken down until Friday, implying that the old guard had no authority over the TMC's social media accounts. The list was the last post on the Twitter handle, however, the sole post on the Facebook page after the list was revealed was a video of Abhishek's Goa campaign.

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