Shawdesh desk:

A rebellion seems to be brewing in Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s ruling Trinamool Congress party.

In fact, dissent has been growing between the old guard of the Trinamool Congress and its Young Turks since the party returned to power for a third five-year term in the eastern Indian state in May last year.

The spark is Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s push to promote a ‘one man, one post’ policy in the party, opposed by senior members of the Trinamool Congress who have been holding multiple portfolios in the political outfit as well as the government.

Though Mamata has apparently crushed the dissent by dissolving all posts in the party except that of her’s — Trinamool chairperson — and constituting a 20-member national working committee, insiders say that it could be just the tip of the iceberg.

“All’s not well in the party. A cold war is going on between the old guard loyal to Mamata and the young members who owe allegiance to her nephew. The latter group is trying to revamp the party,” a senior party leader told UNB over the phone from state capital Kolkata.

After the constitution of the new committee on Saturday, senior Trinamool leader Partha Chatterjee told the media that “Mamata has announced the new national working committee of the party”. “She will later appoint the new office bearers and then it would be sent to the Election Commission.”

Earlier this month, Mamata Banerjee was re-elected as the chairperson of her ruling party unopposed.

Addressing party workers at the Trinamool Congress headquarters in state capital Kolkata after her re-election, Mamata had stressed on the need for defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the next general elections.

Terming the BJP as her “main enemy”, Mamata had said, “We want all the parties against the BJP to come together but if someone does not listen to us, stands away with their arrogance, then, in the words of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, we will walk alone.”

On May 2 last year, Mamata scripted history by single-handedly pulling off a landslide victory in the state election for the third time in a row, bucking anti-incumbency and staving off a massive challenge from PM Modi’s BJP.

Bengal had witnessed the most high-profile assembly polls last year. While Mamata had harped on being Bengal’s daughter, the BJP went overboard by asking people to vote for “change and socio-economic development” after nearly 50 years of Communist and Trinamool Congress rule.