The Media Circus Without Analysis.
(Chapter 13)
Merger of Congress and TMC:
News media in India should start a political party. They are so full of political ideas that it is no more political commentary. They have an urge to play politics while sitting in their armchair in Noida.
When Mamata Banerjee came to Delhi as representative of TMC, last fortnight, to attend INDI Alliance meeting, media was speculating that Mamata will be joining Congress. They even allotted post of Vice President for her. Her nephew Abhishek was made general Secretary of the Congress. Later, all parties denied any talk of merger.
Let us consider, why Mamata will want to join Congress Party, if at all she wants to do it. What Congress Party brings to the table?
The Congress Fort
Mamata is not going to Congress for ideology. She walked out of Congress in 1998 when it was weakest. She ridiculed it and declined to share any seats with Congress in 2024. She knocked Congress door for one reason. It has a network of international relationships, UN bodies, western media, European forums, diaspora organisations. It is an intelligence network of what is loosely called deep state.
Joining requires ideology, or at minimum, the pretense of shared purpose. Purchasing a shield requires only that the seller has something you need and you have something to offer in return. Mamata Banerjee has no ideology in common with Congress. She demonstrated this across twenty-eight years, two walkouts, and one general election in which she contested alone and gave Congress nothing. What she has now is radioactivity, files opening in Bengal, a nephew with a murder allegation, and 7.7 lakh crore in state debt that will generate questions for years.
Congress Party is no more a party that can win votes. The votes are either brought in by regional satraps like Pilot in Rajasthan or it hangs on the apron string of regional parties like Akhilesh in Uttar Pradesh or Lalu Yadav in Bihar or Hemant Soren in Jharkhand. But Congress has is a shield.
The intelligence network of Congress was discussed in detail in February 2026. Its core asset is not electoral. It is informational. A century-old leverage architecture inherited from the British, maintained through relationships with international bodies, western media, European forums, diaspora networks in London, Washington, Paris, and Brussels. The Guardian. The Washington Post. The Financial Times. These are not admirers of Indian democracy. They are nodes in infrastructure that took decades to build and operates on mutual benefit and discretion.
Mamata and Abhishek will love to have an alliance with Congress. Gandhi family’s personal experience in dealing with various prosecutions and litigation would be of tremendous help. However, they are already sharing the same team of lawyers. But the larger question is: Will the Congress want it?
Congress Party’s Dilemma
Congress is fully aware that Mamata is radioactive. She can accelerate the illumination of whatever she touches. But she can be voracious in criticizing Modi, something that seems to be the only political agenda for Congress. They promise just one thing. Remove Modi and everything will be fixed. Mamata can join them.
Merger of Congress and TMC will also be financially beneficial for Congress. TMC is the richest political party after BJP and Congress. A few days ago, ten TMC legislatores complained the Police in West Bengal, about illegal method of recovery of funds and the bank accounts of TMC with funds of 440 crores. TMC has offices, other properties, bank accounts and other investments too. Congress would welcome all this wealth. But it will come at a price.
Mamata Banerjee spent roughly twenty-five years inside Congress between 1970 to 1997. She built loyalty quietly. She collected debts patiently. She said very little and observed everything. She left in 1998 when Congress was at its weakest and she had accumulated enough to build independently. So she left Congress in 1997, formed TMC in 1998, allied with BJP-led NDA from 1999, broke with NDA when it lost power in the Centre in 2004 and had nothing left to offer her
Mamata flipped again after Congress Party formed Government in Center in 2004. She got ministerial berths. Fought the 2011 Bengal election jointly with Congress and won with their help, then went fully solo from 2016 onward, leaving Congress only one or two seats in subsequent state and Lok Sabha elections, and zero in 2024.
The flip-flop of Mamata can put the today’s turncoats in her party to shame or may inspire them to do this more often but media chose to remain silent on this aspect too.
Mamata became part of INDI alliance but gave it no seat in 2024. Now she is back. If taken in the Congress, Mamata Banerjee will spend years inside Congress attempting the long game. She has the instinct and the history for it. She will not sit still. She will manoeuvre. She will build. She will wait for Sonia Gandhi’s health to create a vacuum and position herself accordingly. She is a potential danger to the Gandhi family and they know it. That is a dilemma, no one in media bother to think.
Mamata’s Dilemma
Mamata Banerjee is also under a dilemma. Why should she share her ill gotten wealth with Congress? What shall be the future of Abhishek inside Congress? Will there be any future of Abhishek at all inside Congress.
Mamata Banerjee built an enterprise so purely transactional that even its elected representatives felt no obligation beyond the original payment.
She left Bengal with nothing behind her. It was discussed in Chapter 8. Six weeks of raids, FIRs, Police/ED summons, videos, returned envelopes, and egg pelting have confirmed it with a specificity that the obituary could not have anticipated. What she is carrying to Delhi is only what cannot be left: the consequences.
Gandhi had stopped being vote pullers long ago. They never had power to bring crowds on street. That is to say non-Muslim crowds. Mamata not only has no standing out side West Bengal but there too she could not organise a protest with any crowd. Her protest gathered less than few hundred people. More media people gathered to cover the event. Congress has no say in West Bengal, politically and electorally. What Congress has to offer to Mamata except its ability to humiliate Modi which they are doing as often as possible but without the result.
Mamata’s dilemma is that she has nothing to offer except money but that is not something of much interest to Congress. They may not have enough but that alone can not be a criterion to welcome Mamata Banerjee inside Congress Party.
The media will have to do better before advocating merger. They will have to give some reason for doing it. The may start by answering the question: Who benefits from merger?
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