Didi led the way. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was one of the first to greet the news. The news that the Supreme Court had today stayed a Gujarat lower court order sentencing Rahul Gandhi to two years imprisonment in a criminal defamation case. The apex court questioned why Rahul Gandhi was given a sentence of two years which stripped him of his MPship. The SC’s stay paved the way for the restoration of Gandhi’s MPship in Parliament. Didi’s congratulatory tweet read, “I am happy with the news of the MPship of Rahul Gandhi. This will further strengthen the resolve of the INDIA alliance to fight for our motherland and win. A victory of the judiciary.”

For those who are just tuning in, a criminal case of defamation was filed against the Congress leader before the Parliamentary polls of 2019 after he made a denigrating comment during an election campaign about those whose surnames were “Modi.” Gandhi was sentenced to two years imprisonment by the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat on March 23 this year and this led to his “disqualification” as a Member of Parliament. Later, this sentence however was suspended and he was granted bail. This enabled him to file an appeal against his conviction within thirty days. The Supreme Court’s order restored his MPship.
Mamata’s comments are reminiscent of her statement during the second round of Opposition Unity discussions in Bengaluru on July 18 – the day that the acronym I.N.D.I.A was coined – that Rahul was “her favorite”.

Her tweet today welcoming the Supreme Court order strengthens speculations in political circles that Mamata will not be unwilling to accept Rahul as a possible Prime Ministerial candidate if the INDIA alliance is able to defeat the BJP-led NDA government in the Parliamentary elections of 2024.

Interestingly, the INDIA alliance has truly turned the tables for the relationship between Trinamool and Congress in West Bengal. Political analysts recall the Assembly Elections of 2016 when the Communist Party of India (Marxists) and the Congress forged an alliance to fight Trinamool. “Who can forget how Rahul Gandhi had flown to Kolkata to share the stage with CPIM leader and former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattachary and embraced one another in a show of solidarity to take on Mamata?” said veteran Bengal political analyst Tarun Ganguly.

Of course, in Bengal, the CPIM and the Congres are still together and last heard they are still rivaling Didi in the state. “The equations don’t change for West Bengal,” CPIM leader Sujan Chakraborty had told The Statesman in an interview after the alliance was forged in the first Opposition Unity meeting in Patna on June 23. He added, “The CPIM is in an alliance which has been formed in order to fight the BJP in the Centre and the Trinamool happens to be one of the partners. In the state the CPIM will continue to politically rival Trinamool.”

Congress leader and Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury too had said that the status quo would remain as far as equations between Trinamool and the Congress in the state was concerned.

However, with the camaraderie between Trinamool and Congress growing stronger by the day as far as the Centre is concerned, by the time the Parliamentary elections come around less than a year from now, will the CPIM, Congress and Trinamool be on the same side in the state too? Only time will tell.