AGARTALA, June 1 (TIWN): It was Mamata Banerjee , the then crowd puller leader of Congress known for her hardcore anti-CPI-M attitude, who took the challenge to split within the Congress and virtually formed Trinamool Congress with the former union minister Ajit Panja, Shobhondeb Chatyopadhyay standing by her side. It was in the year 1998 . After this gallons of water flew through the waters of Hooghly and Howrah. But it was the stubbornness of Mamata Banerjee that remained the same till date. Her party lost the consecutive assembly elections in 2001 and 2006. Even in the 2004 Lok Sabha Poll Trinamool Congress managed yo win only one seat with Mamata Banerjee the lone MP from South Calcutta constituency. But she did not change her hardcore political stance against the CPI-M. All on a sudden the issues like Nandigram , Singur sprang and Mamata Banerjee made her formidable entry in politics in the 2009 Lok Sabha Poll winning 19 seats . Practically the end of CPI-M dynasty in West Bengal began from that very moment which eventually happened in the 2011 Assembly Poll where Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress achieved a landslides victory demolishing the 34 years monopoly of CPI-M.

But during these 13 years prior to 2011 the journey of Mamata led TMC went through many ups and downs. The charismatic Mamata indeed was able to show the world that even the myth " CPI-M in Bengal unchallenged" can be destroyed. 

 After years of ideological rivalry between Congress and CPI-M a sudden twist came in 2016 when some power hungry leaders of  Congress and CPI-M came to such a situation to form alliance to contest election against Mamata Banerjee and her party. And this even has all on a sudden created a massive controversy in the political field of Tripura when Sudip Roy Barman and a group of Congress MLAs and leaders started protesting against this alliance calling ' immoral and unethical '. Soon the controversy made an electrifying spark among the common workers and grass root leaders of Congress and some of the MLAs of Congress known to be in the Barman brigade. First it was Sudip Roy Barman who resigned from the post of the Leader of Opposition. Followed by him MLA Ashish Saha , Youth Congress President Sushanta Choudhury , NSUI office bearers resigned from their posts too. The trend still continues. 

In the mean time Sudip Roy Barman rushed to Kolkata just when the Assembly poll in West Bengal were going on. He met TMC leader Mukul Roy , who is learnt have advised Sudip to wait upto the publication of poll result if he and his team wants to merge with TMC. Returning to Tripura Sudip and Ashish started to collect the support of other MLAs and supporters to strengthen their force. Once it looked like that at least 7 MLAs would join TMC . 

But another twist came when four MLAs namely Ratan Lal Nath , Gopal Roy , Jitendra Sarkar and Dilip Sarkar attended the leadership training organised by Birjit Sinha and his lobby. From that day it is not clear whether Sudip Roy Barman will be able to take 6 more MLAs to confidence before merging with TMC and more importantly to avoid the  fear of forfeiting the post of MLA as per " Anti Defection Law "  . The grounds for disqualification under the Anti-Defection Law's are as follows:- 

a) If an elected member voluntarily gives up his membership of a political party;

b) If he votes or abstains from voting in such House contrary to any direction issued by his political party or anyone authorised to do so, without obtaining prior permission.

Finally the 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003, changed this. So now at least two-thirds of the members of a party have to be in favour of a "merger" for it to have validity in the eyes of the law. "The merger of the original political party or a member of a House shall be deemed to have taken place if, and only if, not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger," states the Tenth Schedule.

Again the law says ,"  A split in a political party will not be considered a defection if an entire political party merges with another; if a new political party is formed by some of the elected members of one party; if he or she or other members of the party have not accepted the merger between the two parties and opted to function as a separate group from the time of such a merger. " 

Thus, it is clear that Sudip Roy Barman is probably facing the toughest challenge of his political career along with Ashish Saha. It is now clear to all that it will be humiliating for Sudip and Ashish to remain in Congress after the way they led the initial formation of making ground for TMC in the state of late. Accordingly Sudip Roy Barman met with TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee in Kalighat as well as  Mukul Roy at his Elgin Road residence. MLA Ashish Saha, Sushanta Choudhury and Viki Prasad also remained present in these meetings.  They also met with some other leaders of Trinamool Congress like Abhishek Banerjee.  The way Sudip attended the Oath Taking ceremony of TMC Gov't held in Red Road is itself an indication that he has made up his mind to join TMC . According  to a highly placed source in Team Sudip ," Whatever the situation may be a team of leaders under the leadership of  Sudip Roy Barman will officially join Trinamool Congress in presence of Mamata Banerjee and other TMC leaders of West Bengal in rally to be held in Vivekananda Maidan at Agartala. The rally will be held between the 3rd week of June to the last week of June ." 

During these meetings it was decided Mamata Banerjee and other leaders of TMC will extend full cooperation to party's Tripura unit. A highly placed source in TMC told TWIN  on Monday night that Mamata Banerjee herself is interested to strengthen the party in Tripura simply to teach a good lesson to CPI-M and Congress especially after her bitter experience in 2016 Assembly poll when both the parties targeted her personally. 

Mamata Banerjee made a significant statement before  Sudip Roy Barman and his team saying   ,"  You have got an opportunity. Lets make it count ." Mamata also told team Sudip ," Earlier our party failed to flourish due to the lack of collective leadership. But now the time has come when we have leadership as well as a group of die hard and dedicated anti-CPI-M workers. Lets give them an opportunity so that they can deliver upto their expectation. " 

Meanwhile it is learnt that returning from Kolkata Sudip Roy Barman sent clear message to all his aids saying that if they hesitate to come to his team , he will join TMC alone. But according to TIWN source MLAs like  Ashish Saha , Pranajit Singha Roy , Biswanandhu Sen and Dibachandra Hrangkhal  have already given their green signal for merger with TMC. Only Ratan Lal and Dilip Sarkar are yet to take final decision. But these two MLAs too have been asked to make their final decision by 5th June , said a highly placed source.

Mamata Banerjee also learnt to have told Sudip & Co ,"  If anybody likes to remove CPI-M from power he/she will have to come under the banner of TMC. West Bengal had shown this in 2011 and now Tripura too will see the same thing happening.  And those still within the Congress can  only wait for their debacle. " 

According to a political analyst ," Sudip Roy Barman is taking his toughest political challenge this time. He knows that he has the support of thousands of anti-Left people in Tripura. Thus, he does not need to look behind . Whatever will happen, it will be a gain for him . Over the years Sudip Roy Barman has been controlling the students and youth Congress unions. Till date they are part of him . This is his biggest asset. " 

Tripura's general public still skeptical of Barman family's actual intention - whether Samir Barman, Sudip Roy Barman decided to go all-out against Manik Sarkar or they plan to play as CPI-M's secret B team, what they have been doing over two decades which made Congress Party weaker and CPI-M to stay in power over 22 years.

If  father-son duo Samir Barman - Sudip Barman keenly wanted to oust Manik Sarkar then they could have done decades back but during their tenure in Congress, party became weaker but few Congress party leaders amassed wealth beyond imagination.
 
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