There are no shortcuts to political success, especially outside one’s political stronghold. The Trinamool Congress may be claiming a ‘moral victory’ in the Tripura civic polls and saying that it has captured the dominant position of the opposition in no time, but the clean sweep for the BJP is a reality check for the TMC. should come as one who has developed national ambitions.
To be honest, the TMC think-tank never thought that it would win the civic polls, but it was more to set up ground in a new state. However, the party has set an ambitious target to oust the Congress as BJP’s major opposition party in 2024 and is entering various states with that mindset.
But TMC must be realistic and realize that such success will not come from mere noise and propaganda in an attempt to capture the imagination of the public or by expending forces from parties which are themselves in decline. Such tactics rarely translate into electoral success.
Be it Tripura, Goa or Meghalaya, where Congress leaders have jumped into the TMC, there is no alternative to serious groundwork and organization first. Without him or a vote-base that is convinced to overthrow the government in favor of a new entrant, hardly a party has succeeded outside its stronghold.
Take for example the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has been trying to enter Punjab since 2014. It enjoyed decent success, reaching a peak in the 2017 assembly elections only to collapse and flop in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha. Election.
TMC and AAP are cut by the same kind of cloth as Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal are street fighters who have fought BJP’s allegations in their states. But Kejriwal’s ‘magic’ has not worked outside Delhi even after seven years of efforts.
The party’s long political efforts outside Delhi may eventually yield some positive results this time in Punjab and Goa – the latter being a state where the AAP is actually a more serious challenge to the BJP than the TMC in these elections. TMC may claim that it will win Goa, but you better learn from you.
The constant ridicule of the Congress by TMC leaders could also be a miscalculation. Certainly weaker, the Congress, however, still remains the largest all-India opposition party with a 20% national vote share and governments in three states.
The Congress wrested three states from the BJP in the 2018 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Unlike TMC, it has organizational strength in many states, especially the Hindi heartland. If the Congress unites and does its work, it will certainly be in a better position to challenge the BJP in 2024.
TMC’s latest takeovers, Kirti Azad, Ashok Tanwar or Pavan Varma, could bring little dividends for the party in their states as they failed to do so for the parties they were with. Tanwar, in fact, is held responsible by many in the Congress for running the party on the ground in Haryana, before Hooda tried in vain to revive it at the last minute before the state elections.
Azad last won elections from Bihar seven years ago and since then he has changed three parties. JD-U Rajya Sabha MP Verma was expelled by Nitish Kumar along with Prashant Kishor.
Sushmita Dev is one such leader who came with TMC with electoral base in Assam and may help the party to enter some northeastern states as well. But the TMC needs many more strong leaders in other states, as well as long-disciplined groundwork.