Abhishek Banerjee’s Short Holiday Fuels Speculation Of Rift Within Trinamool Congress?

At a time when Trinamool Congress is celebrating its second best Lok Sabha poll results there is a manifestation of simmering discontent within the party’s top leadership. The trigger seems to be a tweet by the party’s national general secretary and second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee about taking a short break from politics. The timing seems to have given grist to the rumour mills about the real reason for this break. Abhishek stated that he is going for medical reasons.  But, a section of party insiders say Abhishek is unhappy on several fronts. First, with the functioning of the state government as it fails to deliver the promises made by the party to the people. Second, he has expressed his displeasure over the names of the candidates nominated for the bypoll elections for four Assembly seats.  One of the high profile seats of Maniktala is going to be contested by the former state minister Sadhan Pandey’s widow Supti Pandey. Since this does not meet his approval, he is likely to keep away from canvassing for her.  Third, he seems miffed that his selected candidate Shahnawaz Ali Raihan, an Oxford scholar lost Malda south seat. He blames this loss on party workers not doing their best. Fourth, there is a continuous undercurrent between old vs new guard. For instance, Didi’s close aide Firhad Hakim has been sent to Siliguri to look into reasons for the poll defeat of North Bengal which was overseen by Abhishek. Finally, despite the fact young candidates selected by Abhishek won the elections, the party Supremo has once again reposed her faith in Sudip Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee by making them chief whips of the party in the Parliament.