NEW DELHI: A light-hearted exchange outside Parliament on Thursday turned into a trip down political memory lane as Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee told Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra that the Congress would not have been in its current position had Mamata Banerjee not been forced out of the party nearly three decades ago.
The banter unfolded near the Makar Dwar, where Kalyan Banerjee, currently suspended from the Lok Sabha, has been staging a one-man protest wearing a placard displaying photographs of 20 rebel TMC MPs under the caption, ‘Lok Sabha mein Bangal ka 20 Gaddar’ (20 traitors from Bengal in the Lok Sabha).
Noticing the poster, a smiling Priyanka Gandhi remarked that several of the leaders featured on it had originally left the Congress to join the TMC before switching parties again. Responding in jest, Kalyan Banerjee said those leaders had joined the TMC because the Congress had virtually ceased to exist in West Bengal by 2014. “They won on our party's ticket,” he quipped.
Independent MP Pappu Yadav then interjected, pointing out that the leaders were “originally Congress members.” That prompted Kalyan Banerjee to reveal, “I was a Congress person too. I was a vice-president of the Youth Congress.”
He then turned to Priyanka Gandhi with a political barb wrapped in humour: “You had driven Didi out of the Congress. Had you not done that in 1997, the Congress would not have been in such a situation today.”
Priyanka Gandhi responded by recalling that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had always treated Mamata Banerjee with affection and respect. “Rajiv ji had given love and respect to Didi,” she said. Kalyan Banerjee agreed but argued that the relationship later soured when the Congress aligned with the CPI(M) in West Bengal. “Our fight was against the CPI(M). When Didi opposed that, she was driven out of the party,” he said, referring to the events that eventually led Mamata Banerjee to float the Trinamool Congress in 1998. Pappu Yadav rounded off the conversation on a lighter note, telling Kalyan Banerjee that the Congress now fully supports “Didi, a remark the TMC MP readily acknowledged.
