The brewing discontent within the Trinamul Congress over the old guard versus new entrants came to the fore when two senior party MPs, Saugata Roy and Mukul Roy, crossed swords in public over the issue.
At an important foundation day programme in Madhyamgram on Tuesday, the two MPs, state finance minister Amit Mitra and minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya addressed party workers.
Firing the first salvo, Mr Saugata Roy said that now that the Trinamul Congress was in power, many people were trying to join it for personal gains.
“I find nothing wrong in this trend but we must give precedence to those who have fought for the party for long,” he said. He went so far as to set a cut-off year to elaborate his point of view.
“We should draw a line: before 2009 and after 2009. Those who were in the party before 2009 and who had participated in the Singur and Nandigram movements must find place in the front ranks. I am not suggesting that those who joined later should be dumped but they must not be given preference over the old-timers,” he added.
Reacting sharply, Mr Mukul Roy said that the debate on old versus new in the party was meaningless. “Many of the wise men were not with us when the Trinamul Congress was formed for the historic necessity of ridding the state of Left misrule. Those who had disagreed with us later joined one by one. We have already acquired victory so we should not now bother as to who came first and who came later,” he said.
This was a clear dig at Mr Saugata Roy who joined the Trinamul Congress in 2000. In fact, he had contested the 1998 Lok Sabha election against Ms Banerjee as a Congress candidate.