With West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee turning up the heat on the Congress and declaring that her party would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls alone, the Opposition INDIA alliance seems to be unravelling in the state, where the CPI(M)-led Left has already been up in arms against the TMC.

The equations between the state Congress unit and the TMC have also been tense and acrimonious, with the relations between Mamata and West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury marked by hostility and bitterness for many years.

The 69-year-old three-time CM, Mamata had floated the TMC after quitting the Congress on January 1, 1998. Former Union minister Adhir, 67, who has been a five-term MP from Berhampore since 1999, is also the Congress’s Leader in the Lok Sabha.

On the relations between Mamata and Adhir, several TMC and Congress leaders echo a common refrain: “Their ties have always been antagonistic, and they have remained poles apart.”

According to a veteran Congress leader, who had been a colleague of both Mamata and Adhir in the grand old party, said, “The two leaders were never in the same boat. When Mamata rebelled against then PCC chief Somen Mitra-led group in the late 1990s and went on to establish TMC, Adhir was with the Somen faction along with other senior leaders like Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi. Ironically, several Congress leaders, including Somen himself, later joined TMC and became MP but Adhir never joined TMC nor got close to Mamata ever.”

In the 2011 Bengal Assembly elections, Mamata spearheaded the TMC to a resounding victory with the Congress’s support to end the Left’s 34-year rule. In December 2012, a Congress minister in the Mamata Cabinet, Manoj Chakraborty – who is close to Adhir and hails from his home turf, Murshidabad district – resigned that led to the collapse of their coalition. Adhir had then stood by Manoj.

Since then, Adhir has been a prominent face of anti-Mamata politics in Bengal. When the Congress and the Left forged an alliance for the 2016 Assembly elections, Adhir was the key leader behind it. A senior TMC leader said, “Our leadership has repeatedly told the Congress high command that if Adhir remains the state president, then TMC and Congress will never be able to become allies in Bengal. Mamata has always preferred Congress leaders like Pradip Bhattacharya or Abdul Mannan who are less strident towards TMC.”

Mamata recently told TMC workers from Murshidabad district that the party was gearing up to contest all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. At the same time, while referring to Adhir’s constituency Berhmapore in the district, she told them in the closed-door meeting,“If you all fight unitedly, you can defeat Adhir Chowdhury too,” TMC sources said.

Earlier, Adhir had dared Mamata that “If you have the power, come and fight in Berhampore”. He also claimed, “Mamata Banerjee can win seats with muscle power but cannot win people’s hearts. People are with us in Murshidabad.” Adhir has called Mamata an “opportunist”, maintaining that the Congress would contest the Lok Sabha polls without her assistance. “We won’t fight the elections with Mamata’s help. Congress knows how to fight on its own strength, and Mamata Banerjee should remember that it was with Congress’s support she came to power in Bengal,” he said.

To finalise seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls, Mamata earlier offered the Congress just two of its sitting seats – Berhampore and Malda Dakshin. Adhir rejected it, saying the Congress won these seats on its own in 2019 fighting against the TMC and the BJP, and that it would not need any “grace or generosity” from Mamata to win them again.

Meanwhile, senior TMC leader Derek O’Brien on Thursday held Adhir responsible for their alliance not fructifying in the state.

Hitting out at the state Congress chief, O’Brien said the INDIA bloc had many detractors but only two of them, the BJP and Chowdhury, have repeatedly targeted the Opposition alliance.

“After the general elections, if the Congress does its job and defeats the BJP on a substantial number of seats, the Trinamool Congress will very much be a part of the front that believes and fights for the Constitution,” O’Brien reportedly told media persons.