Abhishek Banerjee hurls 20-year vow to blunt BJP’s dynast barb

He advised the saffron party to enact a legislation so that one family can have no more than one representative in politics or any public office

Abhishek Banerjee in Trinamul Bhavan on Monday.: Telegraph picture

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya   |  TT  |  Calcutta   |  08.06.21: Abhishek Banerjee on Monday said on record that he would not be part of the state government or occupy any ministerial berth over the next 20 years, daring the BJP to actually “preach what it practises” in dynastic politics.

He also vowed to make Trinamul truly national in his new role as the party’s national general-secretary.

In his first news meet after his ascent on Saturday to the post that formalised his role as the party’s No 2, a concept that he vehemently nixed and asserted that he is no more than a worker, the 33-year-old Diamond Harbour MP and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew jeered at the saffron camp for apparently being rattled by his new role.

“You have the Union home minister (Amit Shah) and the secretary of the BCCI (Jay Shah) from the same family (father-son)… will such questions be asked of the (Union) home minister?” he asked journalists at Trinamul Bhavan on Monday.

“I don’t want to be in any public office. I am an elected representative, I am an MP…. I don’t want to be in the state government, or for that matter any ministerial berth for the next 20 years. Let me put this on record again, I want to focus on the organisation (of the party),” he said.

He pointed out that his party was the only one attempting to implement the “one person, one post” policy. “…You keep bringing up dynasty, your entire campaign was based on this dynasty concept, you got your answer,” he said, referring to the historic mandate of the Bengal election that was also, in some ways, a referendum on Trinamul’s succession plan, made so by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duopoly’s key poll plank against the alleged bua-bhatijavad (aunt-nephew ‘ism’).

“My answer to them is: sometimes, dynasty is better than being nasty,” said Abhishek, turning the knife in the wound.

He added: “I fail to understand this. On the one hand, the BJP is saying that Trinamul does not exist outside Bengal. On the other hand, they are rattled, confused, perplexed and bewildered by my appointment…Why are you so scared? I ask in all humility.”

He advised the BJP to enact a legislation so that one family can have no more than one representative in politics or any public office.

“Have it enacted, and I will be the first one to resign. Preach what you practise…. You talk about dynastic politics? You welcome dynastic turncoats…. Your own people, with elected representatives, sons, daughters, in-laws… first remove them. You are exposing your own hypocrisy,” Abhishek said.

Since his elevation, Abhishek has been conspicuously reaching out to veterans in the party’s top-tier leadership, underscoring how humbled he is with the responsibility.

Several seniors in the party have also lavished praise on Abhishek’s role, especially after Trinamul's relative setback in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which the BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats and secured leads in 121 Assembly segments in Bengal.

This summer, however, the BJP won only 77 Assembly seats, and Abhishek said many within the BJP were in touch with his party, looking to defect.

He said over one lakh congratulatory emails from across the nation still remain unread, a bulk of which were emails from the masses, common citizens.

Abhishek promised to hold a news meet within a month with details of Trinamul’s national foray, his foremost priority.

“We will come out with a concrete plan — what Trinamul wants to do, which are the states we want to start our units in, and what is our expansion plan,” he said.

“…This attempt of Trinamul to go national is going to be very different from what was attempted in the past. If we are going to go to a state, whichever it is, small, big, southern, northern… we are not going to go there only to contest elections. Wherever we will go and start our unit, our organisation, we will do so to win the state, because we want to be a platform of choice for people of that particular state,” he said, but did not divulge names of these states.

“We do not want to exist in the form of Opposition, in the form of three-five MLAs…. We will be going to take the BJP head on, to win the state,” he added. “In the words of the great Gopal Krishna Gokhale, what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.”