New Delhi: The All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) is currently the ruling political party in West Bengal and in the last Assembly elections in the state, the party registered a thumping victory with more than 200 seats. The party began its journey on January 1, 1998, and it was founded by Mamata Banerjee, who is the supremo of the AITC. In this article, we will take a look at how the political party was founded and how it came to power in West Bengal by dethroning a party which was in power for 34 years.
How was the All India Trinamool Congress founded?
Before the formation of the AITC, Mamata Banerjee was a member of the Indian National Congress for more than 26 years. After that, Mamata decided to quit the Congress and form her own party which would take on the CPIM, which was then in power in West Bengal.
On January 1, 1998, Mamata founded the All India Trinamool Congress and the party’s official election symbol was selected as ‘Jora Ghas Phul’ which means two flowers with grass. The party tasted success right after its formation by clinching seven seats in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. In 1999, the next Lok Sabha election was held due to instability at the Centre and in that poll, AITC won eight seats. In the next year, the party won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Elections.
In this initial years, the AITC was a part of the NDA government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In the 2001 state Assembly elections, the party joined hands with the Congress and won 60 seats, which made it the main Opposition party in West Bengal. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and the 2006 West Bengal Assembly election, the party performed poorly, after which it left the NDA.
How did the AITC came to power?
Mamata Banerjee and the AITC’s rise to power happened mainly because of two most important incidents in West Bengal’s socio-political sphere in the 21st century. One was the Nandigram movement, and the other was the Singur movement.
In December 2006, Haldia Development Authority gave a notice to the people of Nandigram stating that the place had to give up a major portion of its lands and thousands of people would be evicted from their homes to facilitate the construction of a chemical plant. People began a movement in protest and the AITC played a major role in mobilising the movement. On March 14, 2007, the police opened fire which killed 14 villagers and many more went missing. Many intellectuals protested in the streets and the ruling CPM government was criticised left, right and centre.
The Singur movement took place after the incidents in Nandigram and changed the political landscape of West Bengal. In 2008, the state government acquired land at Singur in Hooghly district for the proposed Tata Motors automobile factory where the compact car Tata Nano would have been built. The project would have displaced a large number of farmers, who were unwilling to give up their land.
Mamata Banerjee, then the primary Opposition force in the state, gave the farmers her support and launched a massive movement. It was supported by the likes of Medha Patkar, Anuradha Talwar and Arundhati Roy and many intellectuals in Kolkata. Mamata even embarked on a 26-day hunger strike, which was brough to an end after then-President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then-Governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi intervened. In the end, the Mamata Banerjee-movement at Singur forced the Tata to back out and move the project to Gujarat’s Sanand. The back-to-back Nandigram movement and the Singur movement catapulted Mamata Banerjee and her party to national fame. She became the most popular political leaders in Bengal and icon for the crores of women in the country.
Thanks to those movements, AITC won 19 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and became part of the Manmohan Singh government with Mamata serving as Minister of Railways. In the state Assembly elections held in 2011, the AITC-led alliance that included the Congress and SUCI(C) won 227 seats out of the 294 seats in the state legislature. The party alone won 187 seats and defeated the CPIM-led Left Front government which had ruled West Bengal for 34 years. Since May 20, 2011, Mamata Banerjee has been serving as the first female Chief Minister of West Bengal with her AITC dominating the state government with massive victories in subsequent state Assembly elections.
This article details the journey of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), from its founding by Mamata Banerjee in 1998 to its current dominance in West Bengal. It explores key events like the Nandigram and Singur movements which significantly propelled the AITC to power, ousting the 34-year-long CPM regime. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
