For some years now, old-timers in the Congress discussing ways to revive the Grand Old Party would suggest the possible uniting and absorption of all its splinter factions – Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) and YS Jagan Reddy’s YSR Congress – into the original organisation. That would help the party regain three states, they would say, as the NCP remains a major factor in Maharashtra, while the Trinamool and the YSR Congress are in power in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, respectively. But with both Banerjee and Reddy very clear that neither was prepared to give up their independence for a return to the Congress, the idea never flew.
Instead, ever since Banerjee crafted a spectacular win in the West Bengal elections earlier this year, halting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) juggernaut in its tracks, it is the Trinamool that has become the magnet, the party of hope.
So, when 12 of the Congress’s 17 MLAs in Meghalaya – including former Chief Minister Mukul Sangma – took Trinamool membership last week, it caused little surprise. Of late, politicians of all hues have been lining up to join the party, with the largest number emerging from the Congress, those who have lost faith in the ability of the Gandhis to inject new life into the party. For them, the Trinamool has been a happy option.