West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has agreed to campaign for Priyanka Gandhi in Wayanad at the Congress’s request, despite her previous differences with the party, according to sources. It was actually Mamata Banerjee who suggested that Priyanka contest from Varanasi, an idea that Rahul Gandhi has also recently supported.

This development follows a meeting between veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram and Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat in Kolkata. Sources indicated that Chidambaram was acting as an envoy for the Gandhis.

The TMC leader has been frustrated with the Congress, specifically blaming state party chief Adhir Chowdhury for the collapse of the Congress-TMC alliance talks.

Following the TMC’s significant victory in Bengal, where it won 29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats, the party’s second-in-command, Abhishek Banerjee, has been actively engaging with INDIA alliance members on various issues, excluding the Congress. He first met with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP’s Raghav Chadha in New Delhi, and later flew to Mumbai to meet Uddhav Thackeray.

Earlier this week, a TMC delegation consisting of MPs Kalyan Banerjee, Sagarika Ghose, and Saket Gokale met NCP chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai and participated in a joint demonstration calling for a SEBI probe into alleged stock market manipulation on exit poll day, without involving the Congress.

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Concerned about these developments and aiming to appease the TMC, which is the third-largest opposition party with 29 MPs, the Congress leadership sent Chidambaram to hold direct talks with Mamata Banerjee to resolve their differences.

On Friday, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a known critic of Mamata Banerjee, appeared to soften his stance, stating that his differences with the West Bengal Chief Minister were purely political and not personal. Chowdhury made this remark while addressing party workers during the Pradesh Congress’s two-day internal meeting in Kolkata.

He explained that in 2011, before the Bengal Assembly elections, he had advised Sonia Gandhi that Congress should form an alliance with the TMC to combat the Left, emphasizing that Mamata Banerjee was the most credible face in Bengal and that such an alliance would be beneficial.

Despite his strong anti-Mamata rhetoric in the past, Chowdhury’s Bengal Congress faced a significant defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. The alliance with the CPIM did not even help him retain his Baharampur seat, which he lost to Yusuf Pathan, a political newcomer.

With the Congress leadership making efforts to reconcile with Mamata Banerjee, it is widely felt that Chowdhury has little choice but to moderate his rhetoric.

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