Priyanka–Banerjee banter reflects shifting alliances

metro india news  I new delhi

A light-hearted exchange between Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee outside Parliament on Thursday turned into a reminder of how political alliances in India often come full circle.

Banerjee, the MP from Sreerampur, was protesting with a placard showing photographs of 20 rebel MPs who left the TMC, joined the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), and aligned with the BJP-led NDA. The poster described them as "20 traitors from Bengal."

Priyanka Gandhi, accompanied by Congress MPs, joked that several of those rebels had once belonged to the Congress before joining the TMC and later moving again. Banerjee replied that many leaders had shifted to the TMC in 2014 because the Congress had little presence in West Bengal, adding that they had won their Lok Sabha seats on a Trinamool ticket.

Independent MP Rajesh Ranjan, popularly known as Pappu Yadav, remarked that all of them had once been in the Congress. Banerjee responded that he too had served as a Youth Congress vice-president before accusing the Congress of forcing Mamata Banerjee out of the party.

Priyanka said her father, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, had always respected Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee agreed but recalled that the Congress later aligned with the CPI(M), while Mamata wanted to fight the Left independently. That disagreement eventually led her to leave the Congress and establish the All India Trinamool Congress in 1998.

The exchange reflected the evolving relationship between the two parties. After years of rivalry, the Trinamool joined the Congress-led UPA, later parted ways, and today both are partners in the INDIA bloc while remaining competitors in West Bengal. With the BJP making gains in the state and the TMC facing defections, Thursday's conversation underscored a familiar lesson in Indian politics: today's rivals can become tomorrow's allies when political circumstances change.