Trinamool Congress
The Trinamool Congress, officially known as All India Trinamool Congress, is an Indian political party that is mainly influential in the state of West Bengal. It was founded by Mamata Banerjee on 1 January 1998 as a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress and rapidly rose to prominence in the politics of West Bengal under her leadership. Presently, it is ruling the state of West Bengal beside being the third-largest party in India in terms of number of MPs just after the Bharatiya Janata Party and National Congress.
The party won a historic victory in the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election by ending the 34-year-long Left Front rule, world's longest democratically elected communist government. It has won a three-time majority in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and has been the ruling party in West Bengal since 20 May 2011. AITC is led by Mamata Banerjee as the chairperson of the party.
History
Founding
After being a member of the Indian National Congress for over 26 years, Mamata Banerjee quit the INC and established the TMC in 1998. The official election symbol of the TMC is Jora Ghas Phul. In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, TMC won seven seats. In the next Lok Sabha election that was held in 1999, Trinamool Congress won eight seats with BJP, thus increasing its tally by one. In 2000, TMC won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections.The party initially joined the National Democratic Alliance, as part of the Vajpayee government, and was initially quite successful, winning seven seats in its first election in 1998. In the 2001 Vidhan Sabha elections, the TMC won 60 seats in alliance with the INC, becoming the principal opposition party. They suffered big losses in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and the 2006 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, and subsequently left the NDA.
Nandigram movement
In December 2006, the people of Nandigram were given notice by Haldia Development Authority that a major portion of Nandigram would be seized and 70,000 people evicted from their homes to make way for a chemical plant. People started a movement against this land acquisition and the TMC helped lead the movement. The Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee was formed to protest against the eviction. On 14 March 2007, the police opened fire on the protesters and killed 14 villagers and many more went missing. Many sources claimed that armed Communist Party of India cadres, along with police, fired on protesters in Nandigram Many intellectuals protested in the streets and this incident gave birth to a new movement. Socialist Unity Centre of India leader Nanda Patra led the movement. The events led to a significant backlash against the CPI government, and were a major factor in the TMC's success in the elections that followed.Post-Nandigram/Singur elections
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, TMC won 19 seats in West Bengal, in alliance with the Congress. They subsequently became a part of Manmohan Singh's government, with Banerjee serving as Minister of Railways.In the 2010 Kolkata municipal election, the party won 97 out of 141 seats. It also won a majority of other municipalities.
In government
In the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, the TMC-led alliance that included the INC and SUCI won 227 seats in the 294-seat legislature, defeating the incumbent Left Front government which had been in power for 34 years. TMC alone won 184 seats, enabling it to govern without an alliance. Subsequently, it won a by-election in Basirhat and two Congress MLAs switched to the TMC, giving it a total of 187 seats. Banerjee, an MP at the time, had not contested the election and had to transfer to the safe seat of Bhabanipur.On 18 September 2012, Banerjee announced her decision to withdraw support to the UPA after the TMC's demands to undo government-instituted changes including FDI in retail, increase in the price of diesel and limiting the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders for households, were not met.
The 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw the TMC dominate the state, winning 34 out of the 42 seats. It also qualified for national party status, as the TMC had received 6% of the vote from five different states. On 2 September 2016, the Election Commission recognised TMC as a national political party.
The party was reelected in the 2016 election to a supermajority government, and Banerjee continued as chief minister.
The party won the most seats in West Bengal in the 2019 Indian general election, but suffered significant losses to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which for the first time established itself as a major force in the state. After the election, the party's status came under revision by the Election Commission of India, due to a loss in presence in most states outside West Bengal.
Banerjee's government was reelected again in the 2021 state election by an unexpectedly large margin over the BJP. Prior to the election, several high-profile TMC members such as Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari had defected to the BJP. Despite the large winning margin, Banerjee was defeated by Adhikari in the Nandigram seat, where she had transferred to fight Adhikari head-on.
Presence in other states
Arunachal Pradesh
In the 2009 Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, Trinamool Congress won five seats and got 15.04% of the total votes.In 2020, an independent MLA Chakat Aboh joined the TMC.
Assam
In the 2001 Assam Legislative Assembly election, Jamal Uddin Ahmed won Badarpur constituency. He was a Trinamool Congress candidate. Since then, the party has not emphasised on any other organisation. Later in 2018, the work of the organisation started again under the leadership of M. Shanti Kumar Singha. In the 2021 assembly elections, it was decided to field candidates from 14 constituencies on behalf of the party.All-India president of Congress's women's wing and its national spokesperson and former Silchar MP Sushmita Dev joined the Trinamool Congress in August 2021. She is now an MP of Rajya Sabha.
Later in 2022, former Rajya Sabha MP from Congress, Mr Ripun Bora joined AITC and was named the President of its Assam Unit. Leading to the joining many prominent local leaders joined the party strengthening its grassroot workers level.
The Trinamool Congress released a list of candidates for four Lok Sabha seats in Assam in 2024. TMC's list of candidates includes Gauri Shankar Sarania from Kokrajhar, Abdul Kalam Azad from Barpeta seat, Ghana Kanta Chutia from Lakhimpur seat, and Radheshyam Biswas from Silchar.
Bihar
On 23 November 2021 Kirti Azad, a three-time MP from Darbhanga and Pavan Varma, a former adviser to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, joined TMC.Goa
Trinamool Congress made their state debut in the 2012 assembly election. Wilfred de Souza served as head of the Goa branch of the party.With the 2022 Goa Legislative Assembly election approaching, the work of organising the party started from September 2021. The work began with the participation of seven-time Goa Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro. Since then, the party has increased its membership in Goa. Former footballer Denzil Franco and former tennis player Leander Paes were among those who joined the party. On 13 November 2021, Mahua Moitra was appointed as the in-charge of the party in Goa to prepare it to contest in the Assembly election. MLA Churchill Alemao joined TMC in the same year. In the 2022 Goa Legislative Assembly Election, it got 5.2% votes. Later its party President and many leaders left the party. Samil Volvaiker was appointed the President in 2023.