The appointment of Shubhankar Sarkar, former secretary of the All India Congress Committee, as the new president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) has come as a major surprise in Bengal. This move, replacing five-time Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, has left a sizeable section of the State’s top Congress leadership frowning. The change is perceived as the Congress high command’s friendly overture to Trinamool Congress, replacing one of the ruling party’s strongest critics with a more moderate voice.

Chowdhury had tendered his resignation after the 2024 Lok Sabha election, where the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front-Congress combine won only one seat. Chowdhury himself lost the Baharampur seat, which he had held consecutively since 1999. On September 21, AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal announced: “Hon’ble Congress President has appointed Shri Subhankar Sarkar as the President of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect. He has been relieved from his current position as AICC Secretary. The party appreciates the contributions of the outgoing PCC President, Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.”

Responding to his replacement, Chowdhury stated, “It is customary for the party president to offer to step down after a bad election result. When we didn’t get the expected outcome in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, I informed the AICC of my wish to resign. They neither asked me to reconsider nor assigned me any other role, so I continued my work as before, speaking out against the Trinamool government’s misrule in West Bengal. The high command has now taken its own decision.”

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Chowdhury has been relentless in his criticism of Trinamool. Prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Trinamool blamed him for the failure of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) – comprising the Congress, Trinamool, and the Left–to effectively challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in West Bengal. Political observers believe that following INDIA’s defeat, the Congress central leadership is attempting to strengthen ties with state powers like Trinamool that oppose the BJP.

Restore relations with Trinamool

Psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty views Chowdhury’s replacement by Sarkar as a calculated strategy, facilitated by Chowdhury’s resignation offer. “Appointing Shubhankar as president is a peace offering to Trinamool, aiming for a minimal understanding between the parties. He’s known to be conciliatory towards Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and open to dialogue with Trinamool,” Chakraborty said. However, he noted that Sarkar lacks mass appeal and organisational skills, potentially further demoralising Congress party workers. “He seems chosen solely to mend ties with Trinamool. By making Sarkar president, the AICC has sacrificed the Bengal Congress to maintain good relations with Trinamool,” Chakraborty added, also pointing out that Chowdhury received insufficient support from the central leadership during the election.

Addressing the media after assuming his post, Sarkar said, “For me, Trinamool is a political party. If it functions democratically, I won’t needlessly oppose it… We’ve long been with the Left, and I’ve campaigned with their senior leadership. I wasn’t made president to declare we’re no longer with the Left but with Trinamool, or neither; I was made president to strengthen the Congress party… I want to work with the people and understand their thoughts… So far, we’ve fought elections with the Left as our ally; both the Left and Trinamool are partners in the INDI Alliance.”

Former WBPCC president Pradip Bhattacharya told Frontline that while it’s premature to predict future developments, he’s optimistic about the new president’s potential to revitalise the party. “He’s assured me and other senior leaders that he’ll consult us before making any political decisions. I responded that this approach is ideal, and we can’t ignore the ground realities in West Bengal under Trinamool rule,” Bhattacharya said.

Debaprasad Roy, a prominent Congress leader from north Bengal, pointed out the potential advantages in Sarkar’s leadership. “Shubhankar isn’t aligned with any faction within the Pradesh Congress, which likely gave him an edge over other contenders. As he doesn’t appear to be a dominating leader, he’s expected to provide collective leadership, which has been missing,” Roy told Frontline.

Dissatisfied party workers

While WBPCC leaders have been cautious in their official statements about the leadership change, many have privately expressed reservations. A senior Congress leader told Frontline, “We’re certainly not happy about this appointment. Sarkar has never been a leader of stature deserving this post. His strength lies in aligning with influential AICC lobbies. The fact that he was made West Bengal chief within a month of being appointed Indian National Congress state-in-charge of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Mizoram speaks for itself. I’m unsure how many will be willing to follow him.”

Veteran political observer Biswajit Bhattacharya feels Sarkar’s lack of organisational experience doesn’t bode well for the Congress. “Staging a political turnaround requires organisational abilities, which Sarkar hasn’t demonstrated. Even as a student leader, he wasn’t at the forefront of any major movement. He’s unlikely to build the party infrastructure that Congress desperately needs now, something a leader like Amitabha Chakraborty might be better at,” Bhattacharya told Frontline.

WBPCC leaders and workers are also baffled at the timing of the move. The ruling Trinamool is perhaps at its most vulnerable now, in the aftermath of the R.G. Kar rape and murder case. Many believe that a stronger leader with a direct connect with the masses and party workers is what the Congress needs now.

A senior party leader said: “Adhir Chowdhury may have had his faults, but he was a strong leader who never pulled his punches when it came to the Trinamool; but Sarkar is neither a strong leader, nor is he a powerful, critical voice that can be used against the ruling party. This was the time for us to gain some political ground, but that is not likely to happen under Sarkar. His appointment looks like a gesture of appeasement by our central leadership to Mamata, as if assuring her that the Congress is behind the Trinamool in its fight against the BJP in the State.”

He also pointed out that the party, while accepting Chowdhury’s resignation in June, had not installed anyone until September 21 as WBPCC president. “The election results were declared on June 4, and Chowdhury sent his resignation letter on June 9. It would still have been understandable if Sarkar was made WBPCC president at that time. But it makes no sense to place someone like him at the helm now, when the party can use a leader who can put further pressure on an already cornered Trinamool,” said the WBPCC leader.

Furthermore, Sarkar faces the challenge of filling the shoes of an iconic leader like Adhir Chowdhury. Long considered the tallest Congress leader in Bengal, Chowdhury had managed to defend Baharampur – one of the last Congress bastions – against both CPI(M) and Trinamool’s aggressive attempts to capture it. Despite being a charismatic leader with a mass following, Chowdhury failed to reverse the Congress’s declining fortunes in the state. His uncompromising attitude towards political opponents often extended to his own party members, with many WBPCC leaders resenting his autocratic style.

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Moreover, party rank and file felt Chowdhury was an “absent” president, who, when not in Delhi, was mostly in his Baharampur constituency in Murshidabad. A Congress leader noted, “Neither the workers nor the people of the state saw Adhir Chowdhury providing leadership to the Congress. His time in Bengal was spent in Murshidabad, as if the Murshidabad District Congress office had an extension in Kolkata.”

Electoral success not equivalent to leadership qualities

Chowdhury’s two stints as WBPCC president–2014-2018 and 2020-2024–did little to stem the party’s downward slide. A Congress source commented, “Adhir is the lone Congress leader to have repeatedly won against two different ruling parties, but electoral success doesn’t necessarily equate to great leadership… In Bengal, under his leadership, Congress managed less than 2,000 seats out of 70,000 odd gram panchayats and panchayat samities. We couldn’t secure a single Assembly seat, and our Lok Sabha tally dropped to one.” According to him, this doesn’t reflect well on his leadership. His biggest failure is that Congress lost its visibility in the state and is barely considered an Opposition party. Where is Congress in the movement following the rape and murder case at R G Kar? People only see the BJP and the Left.”

In the 2016 Assembly election, Congress, allied with the Left, won 44 of its 92 contested seats, while the CPI(M) won only 26 out of 148. But the Congress rapidly lost ground thereafter. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, its tally fell from four to two. In the 2021 Assembly polls, despite contesting 91 seats in alliance with the Left, it failed to win any. The 2024 Lok Sabha election saw it win just one seat, with Chowdhury losing his long-held Baharampur seat to former cricketer Yusuf Pathan.

As the Pradesh Congress cautiously enters a new era, its old rival-turned-ally, the Bengal unit of CPI(M), will closely monitor developments. Sujan Chakraborty, senior leader and CPI(M) Central Committee member, told Frontline, “Both CPI(M) and Congress were part of the collective initiative against the BJP at the Centre, agreeing to defeat both BJP and Trinamool in West Bengal. Congress has bitter experiences with Trinamool, whose rise to power in 2011 was facilitated by Congress support, only for Trinamool to subsequently try to destroy it. Congress workers and supporters know this. I hope under the new leadership, Congress will heed its supporters’ and workers’ demands.”

Akhilesh Yadav has the relaxed demeanour of the political giant killer that he proved to be in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The former Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief knows his place in the sun and shares insights with ease. In contrast, the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh is tied up in knots as the party’s leaders admit they had no clue what was coming (the BJP won 33 of the State’s 80 seats and the SP won 37). There is also no clarity about future equations, be it in the party’s State unit or between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the national BJP, where Home Minister Amit Shah continues to reign supreme.

So when we tracked down Lallu Singh, the two-term BJP MP from Faizabad (the seat that includes Ayodhya), who spectacularly lost to the SP’s Dalit veteran Awadhesh Prasad, all he would say was that he had nothing to say. His silence was revealing, as was the extreme caution about not being quoted in any media or social media outlets. Over the years, as Faizabad MP and earlier as an MLA for five terms, Lallu Singh, whose origins are in the RSS, has been an accessible political figure. But this historic defeat at the epicentre of Hindutva mobilisation has silenced him, presumably because it is not clear which level of the party leadership is to be blamed, the national wing that bet all on the Ram Mandir or the State wing that actually handled the ground-level arrangements.

Discontent in Ayodhya

However, other voices were heard loudly in Ayodhya: BJP supporters, loyalists, and workers spoke openly of the constant harassment that followed the build-up to, and the aftermath of, the January 22 inauguration of the Ram Mandir. Pandit Shiv Das, who has voted for the BJP all his life and attended the temple inauguration, said that the people of Ayodhya were harassed by the police and the bureaucracy. VIP zones were created, lands taken, and properties bulldozed, and it became difficult for residents to even move about freely.

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Das also explained how small-scale industries lost out. For instance, earlier local people made and sold diyas from handcarts at the temples, but their livelihoods have now been destroyed, with all temple-associated businesses going to outsiders and big contractors. At a khadi store stacked with “Jai Shri Ram” stoles, a resident told us that what happened on Ram Navami this year (April 17), should have sent out warning signals. Most of the laddoos prepared in anticipation of several lakh visitors on that day had to be thrown away because people just could not reach Ayodhya and many did not even attempt to come as the town has stopped being a place for ordinary pilgrims.

These complaints come from sections that are loyal to the BJP, and are mostly dominant caste. Of the five Assembly segments that constitute the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, the BJP was behind in four but ahead by a few thousand votes in the Ayodhya city segment. Beyond the disaster in Ayodhya, a larger story played out across the State: OBCs and a section of Dalits voted against the BJP. The SP’s groundwork for nearly two years on what it called the PDA (pichda, or backward caste; Dalit; and alpasankhyak ,or minority) coalition paid off.

Byelections for 10 Assembly seats are due in October-November, and the BJP will be hoping that the people’s anger has been assuaged and that some dominant caste and urban voters who did not cast their vote will return, now that the party is in a crisis. It is also looking for a shift in the OBC and Dalit vote. While Adityanath has been given a free hand, there is anxiety here, at a time when the subaltern groups are shifting away from the BJP, as he is from the dominant Thakur caste. Akhilesh Yadav has raised the issue of the rape and murder of two Dalit teenagers who were found hanging in Farrukhabad, and begun a campaign to say the BJP is fundamentally anti-women, besides being anti-OBC and anti-Dalit.

Back to basics for the BJP

Still, Adityanath will use the administrative machinery in every possible way. For the BJP it is back to basics on every front, such as displaying anti-Muslim bias through rhetoric, policy, and harping on the community getting special treatment when it is actually being targeted. The psych-ops of so-called Hindu victimhood are currently in full flow since the BJP’s politics at the elemental level begins and ends with obsessing over and targeting Muslims.

The SP and the Congress are on an entirely different tack, demanding a caste census and the expansion of reserved categories. The SP has been diligent in highlighting examples of reserved jobs going to general category candidates and large-scale corruption in land allotment in Ayodhya. Former MLA and local SP leader Pawan Pandey has tirelessly highlighted cases of villagers not getting adequate compensation for lands, such as those acquired for the airport in Ayodhya, and of big builders “with Gujarat connections” getting prized lands for a song.

The other crisis confronting the BJP comes through when talking to villagers in Mohanlalganj, a reserved Lok Sabha seat on the outskirts of Lucknow. The BJP was defeated here despite a very efficient outreach of free rations to households to get the labharthi (beneficiary) vote. The working-class families here did receive free rations, but they consider it their right and not largesse from the Modi/Yogi regime. As one of them quipped: “Are we dogs at whom they throw rotis? Or the bandua mazdoor [bonded labour] of Dilli Raja and Lucknow Maharaja?”

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It is a lesson in itself that in the Mohanlalganj seat, a two-term Pasi Dalit MP of the BJP, Kaushal Kishore, was defeated. Ironically, a Pasi Dalit (Awadhesh Kumar) triumphed in Faizabad. This is the reality in the part of Uttar Pradesh referred to as Awadh. At one of the stops on the road from Lucknow to Allahabad that passes Rae Bareli, an old wizened farmer, Lalla, who voted for the Congress in the Unchahar segment of the Rae Bareli seat, said: “We did what we had to.” Life is difficult and hopes of jobs have dimmed, while falling sick is a disaster in the face of the poor public health infrastructure in the State.

So, when the cup brimmeth over with bad news, there is to be a crackdown on its dissemination. Adityanath’s new social media policy enforces stringent punishment, such as a life-term, for content deemed abusive and “anti-national” and tries to promote “positive content” offering payment up to Rs.8 lakh to those who create videos, posts, or tweets about the achievements of the regime. If it was not so terrible, it would be hilarious. Now paid influencers will get paid more to praise the Adityanath regime, even as ordinary folks and the media could be harassed for even a critique. It sounds like North Korea, but it is the republic of Uttar Pradesh, where the ruling party has been badly jolted.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.