Trashing her pre-2019 dream to build a federal front to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi politically, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who runs powerful regional satrap Trinamool Congress (TMC), preferred to keep herself low profile in her recently-concluded Delhi trip, where she met a number of Congress leaders besides two regional politicians with an aim to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024 General Elections.
The experiment of the federal front is no stranger to the Indian politics.
Years after a dream of the Leftists to provide a third option to the people of the country derailed, Mamata, who had once called the “Third Front” a “tired front” in one television interview some time back in 2014, met a line of regional leaders before the 2019 General Elections to halt the Modi juggernaut.
Well, neither a third or federal front nor the United Opposition could set out for sailing in the backdrop of the nationalist agenda fuelled by the BJP post-Balakot airstrike as Modi stormed back to power in 2019 with even a bigger majority.
Modi government’s alleged COVID-19 mismanagement, economic crisis, job losses, fuel price hike along with the TMC’s resounding victory in West Bengal that led the BJP to bite the dust has at least reignited Mamata’s aspirations to return to Delhi politics but on a larger scale.
Though Mamata, a seven-term Lok Sabha MP and a former cabinet minister in the Centre, like a seasoned politician never expressed her wish to become the Prime Minister, her party leaders are just falling short of uttering it.
