Mamata Banerjee decided to take the strike herself to resolve the growing conflict inside the Trinamool Congress (TMC) camp in West Bengal’s Hooghly district.

In a meeting with several party leaders from Hooghly – chaired by TMC Youth Secretary Abhishek Banerjee – on Wednesday, the West Bengal Chief Minister informed that she herself will take control of the matters in Hooghly from now onwards.

Calling on Abhishek’s phone, Mamata had long-lasting talks with the Hooghly leaders and gave them an ultimatum to resolve the conflict with each other and focus on keeping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at bay in the Assembly Elections next year.

Over the last few days, several ruling party leaders in the district – Haripal MLA Becharam Manna, former party secretary in the district Tapan Dasgupta, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghoshal and Arambag MP Aparupa Poddar – verbally attacked the current district secretary Dilip Yadav for his high-handed approach in party’s matters, exposing the power struggle among themselves.

To bring an end to this menace ahead of the much-important Assembly Elections in April next year, TMC high command had called Indranil Sen, Asima Patra, Snehasish Chakraborty, other than Poddar, Ghoshal and Yadav for a meeting.

The ongoing conflict can be traced back to when Yadav was made the district secretary, replacing Dasgupta after TMC’s heavy beating against BJP there.

Meanwhile, taking cognizance of the issues raised by the rebel leaders, TMC high command, on Wednesday formed a core committee. It will be the only competent authority to decide all the party-related matter.

In a way, the power of Yadav has been shredded to some extent, believes many in the ruling party camp.

Reports in Bengali media, though, have suggested that this approach from Mamata is unlikely to fetch her dividends. Several examples from the past show that the conflict had always reared its head after a few days of CM’s involvement.

Last year ahead of the General Elections, a similar situation was being played among the TMC leaders in Nadia. To resolve the issue, Mamata had called a meeting in State Secretariat Nabanna.

But, despite the high command’s repeated warning, the leaders had failed to drop off the conflict among each other and the party had to lost Ranaghat constituency in 2019.

However, this time its more of a do-or-die situation for the West Bengal’s governning party. When BJP has emerged as a powerhouse in the state, especially in Hooghly where the saffron party had literally thrashed TMC in the Lok Sabha Elections last year, this brazen power tussle among TMC leaders is sure to weaken the party’s cause in its attempt to regain the power in next year’s election.

This is what the Hooghly leaders were reminded by the high command in the meeting on Wednesday and were further asked to a abandon their conflict for the greater sake of defeating BJP next year.