Friday, June 23, could turn out to be one of the most crucial days as far as the Parliamentary elections of 2024 is concerned.  The leaders of India’s major Opposition political parties are scheduled to meet to discuss the formation of a united front to fight the BJP together and if they do agree to do that it is likely to change the fate of the ruling party and the future of the country next year.

Among those who have reportedly already consented to attend the conference, which will be hosted by Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Didi, as Banerjee is affectionately called, is in fact, one of the more prominent faces because the buzz in political circles in Bengal is that her name could come up in the context of a discussion on the projection of a possible Prime Ministerial candidate if such a united front can indeed defeat the BJP. 

Didi’s party, Trinamool, is currently tight-lipped about disclosing any such plans though they do point out that she is eminently qualified for the job and perhaps even more so than all the others.

Dola Sen, one of Banerjee’s closest aides and a Trinamool Rajya Sabha member says, “Mamata Banerjee has never expressed any intention to be the Prime Minister but with all due respect to the others, she is one of the most deserving to lead the country.” 

Since the beginning of her political career, Banerjee has been in national politics. She became a Member of Parliament in 1984 when, as a Congress candidate in her very first election, she defeated the heavyweight Left candidate and then incumbent MP, Somnath Chatterjee from the Jadavpur constituency.  In fact, when Banerjee broke away from the Congress fourteen years later and formed the Trinamool party in 1998, she named the new party, “All India Trinamool Congress.” It was an indication that she did not want to remain limited to regional politics. 

Enumerating her credentials further, Sen says emphatically, “Show me one other political leader with the kind of trajectory that Mamata Banerjee has?”

Highlighting Mamata’s extensive experience as a politician for almost four decades, she explains, “Mamata Banerjee has been an MP seven times, serving as a minister six times with five different portfolios (twice as Railways Minister, once as Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, once as Coal and Mines Minister, once as Women and Child Development Minister and once as Youth Affairs and Sports Minister).  She has been elected Chief Minister three consecutive times and her party’s strength in the Assembly has risen significantly from 186 seats in 2011 to 211 seats in 2016 and further to 217 in 2021.”

However, Trinamool says that currently, the key agenda is to work out a plan to dethrone the NDA government at the Centre in the next general elections. “Didi has no other agenda,” says Sen. 

Interestingly, for Didi, the coming together of the main Opposition political parties at the national level is fraught with complexities at the regional level.  While Left leaders namely CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D. Raja and CPI (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya are expected to attend the conference and sit in on the plans of a united front, the Left is Mamata’s traditional political rival in Bengal. While BJP remains a common enemy in the state, the two parties are definitely not friends – not at the regional level at least.  The other twist in the tale is that Congress is an ally of the Left in Bengal and have fought elections together against Mamata. Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and the All Indian Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge too are reportedly expected to attend the meeting. 

The other political leaders who have reportedly given their consent and are expected to attend are Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. 

As far as Trinamool is concerned BJP is the only rival which is an enemy both at the regional and national levels.  And in order to defeat them, Didi is clearly okay with sitting in a discussion about a possible alliance with even sworn enemies the Left and Congress (at the regional level). A lot of the success of such a meeting will depend on how Didi deals with the complex nature of her relationship with these two parties and whether they will overcome their differences for a common cause. 

On the topic of “common causes”, however, currently the conference is reportedly not planning to decide on a “common minimum programme”.