In September, when former Goa Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro, an MLA, switched from the Congress to the Trinamool Congress, this is what he said: “I am a Congressman of 40 years. I will continue to be a Congressman of the Congress family. Among all four Congresses, it is Mamata who has given a tough fight to Modi and their juggernaut.”

He was referring to how “the Congress is now fragmented between Sharad Pawar’s Congress, Trinamool Congress and YSR Congress” and how West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee emerged on the national scene after drubbing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly election.

Faleiro’s statement was definitely loaded with deeper implications than simply a change of coat in politics. Since then, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC has seen greener pastures in several states where the Congress is stuttering. In a larger picture, the TMC is getting a toehold in state after state where the Congress has left dissent among its leaders and cadres unaddressed.

The TMC is trying to present Mamata Banerjee as a pan-India leader and itself as a party with a national presence and not merely a Bengal force. A switchover by 13 of 17 MLAs in Meghalaya from the Congress to the TMC is the latest case.

The TMC’s induction spree began soon after its victory in the West Bengal Assembly election this year. Within a month of its victory, several leaders who had earlier switched sides from the TMC to the BJP indicated their return to Mamata Banerjee’s party. But the real expansion campaign of the TMC began with its first significant ‘capture’ in Sushmita Dev joining the party in August.

ASSAM: SUSHMITA DEV

Sushmita Dev was the All India Mahila Congress chief, when she quit the Congress and joined the TMC. An influential voice in Assam politics and the daughter of former Congress stalwart Santosh Mohan Dev, Sushmita was later nominated by the TMC to the Rajya Sabha.

For long, Sushmita Dev was considered a key member of Team Rahul Gandhi in the Congress. She had drifted from the Congress leadership after her concerns over the nomination of candidates in the Assam Assembly election, particularly in the Barak Valley region earlier this year. Sulking in the grand-old-party, Sushmita Dev quit a powerful post in the Congress to join the TMC, technically a splinter group of the party.

TRIPURA EXCURSION

Though Sushmita Dev’s induction in August was a shot in the arm of the TMC, its Tripura excursion had begun a month before. With a majority Bengali population, it is the immediate goalpost of the TMC. The party set out to expand its bases in Tripura early.

Seven senior Congress leaders in Tripura joined the TMC in July. This happened shortly after the Tripura Police booked 23 members of I-PAC, the political consultancy group of Prashant Kishor, Mamata Banerjee’s political consultant.

Those who joined the TMC included former minister Prakash Chandra Das, former MLA Subal Bhowmik, All India Congress Committee (AICC) member Panna Deb, and Congress minority leader Md Idris Miah.

Since then, the TMC has focused on Tripura with top leaders, including Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee having made multiple visits to Tripura. In August, Tripura Youth Congress’s former working president Santanu Saha joined the TMC.

In October, an MLA from the ruling BJP also joined the TMC that is said to be weak on the ground compared to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) that ruled Tripura for 25 years before the BJP shocked it in 2018 assembly polls. At the same Tripura rally of the TMC, former Bengal minister Rajib Banerjee rejoined the party quitting the BJP.

Altogether, around 30 Congress and BJP leaders joined the TMC in Tripura.

POLITICAL CARNIVAL IN GOA

Faleiro’s induction came as a surprise as he joined a party that did not have its presence in Goa. He suddenly brought the TMC as a focal point in Goa just months away from the assembly polls. The TMC became part of the conversation along with the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as the Opposition plans to unseat the BJP.

Some reports said nine other Congress leaders Lavoo Mamledar, Yatish Naik, Vijay Vasudev Poi, Mario Pinto De Santana, Anand Naik, Rabindranath Faleiro, Shivdas Sonu Naik, Rajendra Shivaji Kakodkar and Antonio Monteiro Clovis Da Costa also joined the TMC following Faleiro.

A month later, in October, Mamata Banerjee went touring Goa, holding public rallies that, however, did not receive as much support as the TMC and the I-PAC expected. But more eminent personalities joined the TMC in Goa. They included tennis player Leander Paes, actor Nafisa Ali and entrepreneur Mrinalini Deshprabhu.

The TMC suffered a little jolt in its forward plan as influential Goa leader Vijay Sardesai refused at the last moment to merge his Goa Forward Party (GFP) with the TMC during Mamata Banerjee’s visit to the state in October-end.

However, the TMC succeeded in engineering a split in the GFP with former MLA and party’s working president Kiran Kandolkar joined the TMC earlier this month, along with his wife Kavita Kandolkar and at least 40 other dissenting party office bearers and local body leaders.

HARYANA

In Haryana, the TMC managed to pull former state Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, who was once considered Rahul Gandhi’s ‘man’ in Haryana. He quit the Congress just ahead of assembly polls in 2019 after being removed as Haryana Congress chief.

The TMC hopes that Ashok Tanwar would build a dedicated cadre base for the party in Haryana, a state where dissension among Congress party is not new. Tanwar joined the TMC during Mamata Banerjee’s Delhi visit this week.

BIHAR

Along with Ashok Tanwar, two more leaders joined the TMC Pawan Verma and Kirti Azad. Both have been Members of Parliament from Bihar Kirti Azad as three-time Lok Sabha MP from Darbhanga and Pawan Verma as Rajya Sabha MP. Pawan Verma, a career diplomat-turned-politician, was once advisor to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Kirti Azad, the son of former Bihar Chief Minister Bhagwat Jha Azad, is a cricketer-turned-politician who was part of the Cricket World Cup-winning team in 1983.

UTTAR PRADESH

In October, senior Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders, including Rajeshpati Tripathi and Lalitpati Tripathi joined the TMC in the presence of Mamata Banerjee in Siliguri in North Bengal.

Rajeshpati Tripathi is a former MLC, while Laliteshpati Tripathi is former UP Congress vice-president and a former MLA. Rajeshpati and Laliteshpati are the grandson and the great-grandson of Kamalapati Tripathi, the former UP chief minister.

NOW, MEGHALAYA

Now, the Congress has effected a major scoop, 12 of the 17 MLAs of the Congress, which the principal Opposition party joined its camp. This came less than a week after former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma met the AICC leadership in Delhi. Mukul Sangma led the dissident faction of MLAs.

Meghalaya presented the same scene as Goa. In both states, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party. But it lost a majority of MLAs, with defecting leaders complaining against the party leadership.