Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee avoided making a public appearance on Friday, the day the Congress ruled the Opposition politics in Bengal. Trinamool leaders said the total success of the Congress-sponsored bandh showed that despite asked by Banerjee to not support the bandh, the Trinamool workers at the grassroots level actively supported the Congress workers.

“The bandh could have failed, at least in South Bengal districts, without our participation,” said a senior leader of the party. “We thank Mamata Banerjee for extending moral support to the bandh,” said Subrata Mukherjee, working president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee.

Since morning news from districts poured in at Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence that party workers at many places actively supported the Congress members, especially in Burdwan, Birbhum, North 24-Parganas and Kolkata. Most embarrassing for Mamata was the fact that Congress workers dominated even in her Lok Sabha constituency on the bandh day, though she had asked her followers not to take an active part in the bandh.

Asked about the nature of the bandh, Partho Chatterjee, leader of the Opposition and Trinamool legislator, said, “Ask the PCC president about the bandh whether it was a success or a failure.”

CPM leaders, on the other hand, were busy finding a subtle crack in the Opposition camp. “It is a battle between the Congress and the Trinamool to establish supremacy in Bengal politics,” said Shamik Lahiri, CPM state committee member and a former MP.

Though Biman Bose, state secretary of CPM, slammed the Congress-sponsored bandh, a section of party leaders feel that the Congress should be considered as a main opposition party since it has proved its strength in many parts of south Bengal districts known as Trinamool strongholds. “There was total vandalism and lawlessness throughout the day,” said Bose.

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