Abhishek Banerjee admits to growing infighting in Trinamool

Kolkata, Jan 15 The Trinamool Congress’ general secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee, on Wednesday, admitted to growing infighting within the party and described this factionalism as a natural syndrome with the growth of any political party.

“When a political party grows in size, factionalism within the party comes as a natural process. Is not factionalism prevailing in the Trinamool Congress? Was there no factionalism in the CPI(M) when the party was in power in West Bengal?

“Such differences also prevail in families. Differences are bound to prevail in a party which has multiple layers of leadership. That is quite natural,” Abhishek Banerjee said while addressing a gathering at his Lok Sabha constituency of Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

At the same time, he added, the Trinamool leadership is always sincere about preventing factionalism within the party.

“The party’s internal disciplinary committee always takes action against those who are trying to weaken the party from the inside.

“In future, too, such checks and balances will continue. If anyone is involved in criminal activities the party will not protect them and strong disciplinary action will be taken against them,” Abhishek Banerjee said.

Political observers say that Abhishek Banerjee’s observations on this count are significant, especially in the wake of factionalism within the state’s ruling party in Malda district leading to the murder of two local leaders there in the current month.

Speaking on the occasion, Abhishek Banerjee also referred to the murder of the party councillor from Ward number 22 of English Bazar Municipality in Malda district, Dulal Sarkar a.k.a. Babla.

Babla was killed on an open road on the morning of January 2. The cops arrested Trinamool Congress Malda town president and the chief of the party’s Hindi cell in the district, Narendra Nath Tiwari, as the mastermind behind the killing.

“The arrest of Tiwari proves that the police in West Bengal can operate impartially without any influence from the ruling party in the state.

“This does not happen in a BJP-ruled state. This had never happened during the previous Left Front regime in West Bengal,” Abhishek Banerjee said.