After the poll debacle, the revolt: How Mamata is losing control of her TMC

“In nightmares and terror, you protected me on your lap, you affectionate mother…” Ritabrata Banerjee was passionately reciting the full version of Rabindranath Tagore's Jana Gana Mana on March 9 when Mamata Banerjee abruptly cut him short.

Then a Rajya Sabha MP of Mamata’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), he was on the dais of her demonstration in Kolkata protesting the Special Intensive Revision of the voter roll. He loves to recite long poems and to intersperse poetry with political rhetoric in his speeches. That time, the party chief got impatient. “Ritabrata, give culture a break and focus on your subject, which is the SIR,” she told him. He obliged. He never had much of a say in the party in any case.

Now, in less than three months, he has spread terror among the party top brass and turned her life into a nightmare. In a chain of developments that bewildered politicians and political observers alike, Ritabrata, now an MLA in the West Bengal assembly, hijacked TMC’s legislative team from Mamata, who founded the party 28 and a half years ago and has led it since then as its undisputed leader.

On June 4, Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose announced Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the opposition belonging to the TMC. This recognition came after 58 of 80 TMC MLAs submitted a letter to the Speaker, naming Ritabrata as the leader of the opposition.

Only on June 2, the TMC had expelled Ritabrata and another MLA, Sandipan Saha, for anti-party activities. Mamata had then publicly regretted having taken Ritabrata into her party after the CPI(M) had expelled him. In less than 48 hours, two-thirds of TMC MLAs backed Ritabrata. 

Saha, the other expelled MLA, is now among the deputy leaders of the rebel TMC’s legislative party, which also named Akhruzzaman its chief whip.

To grasp why all this matters, consider the timing. Barely a month earlier, on May 4, the TMC was voted out of power after 15 unbroken years and three consecutive terms governing West Bengal, routed in the 2026 assembly election by a BJP that swept 208 of the 294 seats. Mamata herself lost her Bhabanipur seat to Suvendu Adhikari, her one-time lieutenant, who was sworn in as chief minister on May 9. Now, within weeks of that defeat, the woman who built and ran the TMC for nearly three decades is watching her own legislators walk out of her grasp.

If politicians who spoke to Newslaundry on condition of anonymity are to be believed, a similar effort is on by a senior MP from one of Kolkata’s neighbouring constituencies to get 18 of 29 TMC Lok Sabha MPs together to rebel against the party leadership and claim to be the real TMC parliamentary party. They are likely to meet the Lok Sabha Speaker on June 8, seeking Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar’s appointment as the party’s Lok Sabha leader. 

Newslaundry could not reach Dastidar over the phone, but she made a curious social media post on Friday. “Do you think an MP of 4 terms from a political family , having been with @MamataOfficial, fighting autocracy for 4 decades thinks of self ? It is verdict against policy and failure of governance,” she wrote. 

She had resigned from all party posts last month after Mamata replaced her with Kalyan Banerjee as the chief whip of the party’s Lok Sabha team. Currently, Abhishek Banerjee is the leader of the party’s parliamentary team. 

Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has announced the dissolution of all party committees and frontal organisations across the state. This is being seen as a strategic step to preempt the possibility of an organisational split in the party.

She alleged that those rebelling against the party were doing so under the BJP’s pressure or greed for money. “They are using the police…. some are being coerced by their family members because their families made a lot of wealth and are now afraid of the BJP,” she said in a video message. 

Biggest jolt amid arrests

This has given the 71-year-old Mamata Banerjee, one of India’s strongest and fiercest regional leaders, the biggest jolt of a political career spanning five decades. Many politicians have broken out of the Congress, but none succeeded like her – running a state with absolute control for 15 years, including 10 years of above 70 percent majority in the House.

What’s more shocking is that her party’s legislative team has been hijacked by someone who joined the party barely six years ago.

“That a third-rung TMC leader like Ritabrata managed to split Mamata Banerjee’s party tells one that there is some bigger force behind him,” said Zaad Mahmood, a political scientist at Kolkata’s Presidency University. 

One of the late Marxist chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s blue-eyed boys, Ritabrata was a CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP when the party expelled him in 2017. He formally joined the TMC in 2020 after the end of his Rajya Sabha tenure.

In December 2024, TMC sent him to the Rajya Sabha for a truncated term left incomplete by the resignation of Jawahar Sircar. This term ended in April and he contested the assembly election from Uluberia Purba (East), winning his first ever assembly seat. He also held the position of president of the party’s labour wing, the INTTUC.

This split also came amidst a series of arrests of TMC leaders, including MLAs, municipal corporators, gram panchayat chiefs and members, primarily on various charges of corruption and violence.

“These arrests have sent a spine-chilling message to most of the party’s leaders: if they continue with their political work, they must be prepared to face jail,” said a TMC MLA who did not want to be identified.

Another leader pointed out that just at the time Ritabrata was addressing the media after being recognised as the leader of the opposition, a team from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central financial crime investigation agency, reached the residence of Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata’s political heir, to serve him a notice for appearance. 

Newslaundry reached out to both Ritabrata and Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on the TMC’s pro-Mamata faction’s charge that the rebellion was being engineered by the BJP. Phone calls to both of them remained unanswered. This report will be updated if a response is received. 

The chronology

Trouble started brewing in the party just two days after the electoral debacle. On May 6, during a meeting of some of the newly elected MLAs, Mamata Banerjee asked everyone to show respect to the 38-year-old Abhishek by standing up: for the hard work that her nephew apparently undertook. That was a moment that triggered several MLAs.

Since May 4 evening, several party leaders had blamed Abhishek’s high-handed approach using the political consultancy firm I-PAC for the party’s disastrous results. During the May 6 meeting, Mamata said that she would not tolerate criticism of Abhishek. Anyone who had anything to say, complain or suggest should submit it in writing.

However, things started going out of her control, with spokespersons quitting, politicians announcing retirement and dozens of municipal corporators and panchayat members resigning.

Another meeting was held at her residence on May 19. It was there that Ritabrata and Sandipan launched an explosive confrontation. This meeting happened a few hours after the TMC’s Falta candidate, Jahangir Khan, announced withdrawing from the contest just 48 hours before the repoll. This walkover further demoralised the TMC camp statewide.

Falta was Abhishek’s bastion and the candidate, Jahangir Khan, was one of his favourites. Ritabrata and others started taking potshots at the party for not expelling Khan. They also demanded that Abhishek, having governed Falta so long through Jahangir, should now take responsibility for the debacle.

Three days later, an ‘accidental’ or ‘coincidental’ meeting between Ritabrata and Suvendu Adhikari in Delhi triggered political curiosity. Soon after, a controversy broke out over the party’s letter to the Speaker naming 10-time MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the opposition leader, Firhad Hakim as the chief whip and Nayana Bandyopadhyay and Asima Patra as deputy leaders.

On May 27, Ritabrata and Sandipan formally lodged a complaint with the assembly speaker, alleging that some of the MLAs’ signatures in the letter were put in their absence. This led to a police investigation into the signature forging controversy. The CID, which is currently assisting the police in the investigation, has already interviewed 13 MLAs.

The possibility of Mamata losing control over her party’s MLAs and MPs became a talking point soon after. Only 20 of the party’s 80 MLAs turned up at Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence on May 30 for a legislative party meeting scheduled a week in advance – the same day a hostile crowd assailed Abhishek Banerjee with eggs and bricks at Sonarpur in South 24 Parganas, an attack the rebels would later cite to taunt him for staying out of public view. Only eight MLAs and six of the party’s 41 MPs were present at Mamata’s street protest on June 2.

Intriguingly, the day after the expulsion of Ritabrata and Sandipan, Suvendu Adhikari, the state’s new BJP chief minister, went to New Delhi along with the Speaker to meet the party’s central leadership. That day, Mamata-loyalist MLA Kunal Ghosh went to the assembly to submit another letter demanding the Leader of the Opposition status for Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Mamata’s choice. The Speaker’s office refused to receive the letter.

On June 4, Speaker Bose swiftly accepted the rebel camp’s letter and allotted them their room for the opposition party. The next morning, he left for Delhi again.

While the TMC’s pro-Mamata leaders questioned how an expelled MLA could be the party’s legislative leader, Bose told journalists in Delhi that the expulsions are not valid because they were expelled without a chance to respond to a show cause notice. “The procedure for expulsion was not followed,” he said. 

The pro-Mamata faction of the party will challenge the Speaker’s decision, they said. 

‘Loyal opposition’

While Mamata has been alleging that her defeat was caused by manipulation, Ritabrata argued the people’s verdict assigned them to the opposition benches. “We must accept that reality.”

“We intend to fulfill the role of a responsible and constructive opposition. We will engage in a direct, eye-to-eye confrontation with the government where necessary, but we will also commend their positive initiatives,” Ritabrata said while addressing the media from the Leader of the Opposition’s room.

However, the Left, the Congress and political observers painted them as the BJP’'s “loyal opposition”.

“The worst of the TMC have gone to the so-called rebel camp,” CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim told Newslaundry. He argued that it is those who essentially want to stay with power, who do not want to confront the BJP, who have taken a “safe shelter” on this platform under the BJP’s patronage.

“Most of them are afraid that the BJP might use police and other agencies against them. But, in the end, they would not be able to do the most important task meant for the opposition – protecting the weak, poor and the marginalised from the governing party’s policy and political onslaughts,” Salim said.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury nearly echoed him. He said that the majority of them secured their victories in the elections primarily on the strength of the Muslims’ votes. Consequently, they can face the wrath of the public if they defect to the BJP.

“For the time being, they are maintaining a ‘two-yard distance’ from the BJP. Central investigative agencies are already probing many of them over allegations of corruption. Therefore, while they may publicly maintain a distance from the BJP to ensure their political survival, they will ultimately have to dance to the BJP's tunes,” Chowdhury alleged.

The BJP state unit president Samik Bhattacharya said the party had no role in these developments. “She made leaders out of those who could not have won corporation elections on their own. They are changing camps. She is paying the price for her own deeds,” he said.

The battle ahead

After assuming the charge of the leader of the opposition, Ritabrata said, “Mamata Banerjee is still our leader. We would like to get her advice.” Even in the letter submitted to the Speaker, the 58 MLAs named Mamata as the leader of the party. This is being seen as a tactical move considering the legal battle that is likely to follow.

They made it clear that they will not have anything to do with Abhishek Banerjee, currently an MP and the party’s all-India general secretary. “We are rescuing the party from Abhishek’s disastrous mishandling,” Saha told Newslaundry.

The TMC’s pro-Mamata leaders, on the other hand, say some of the MLAs from the rebel camp are also in touch with the pro-Mamata MLAs and have expressed their willingness to return to Mamata’s fold. “How will they face the workers if they dump Didi?” asked pro-Mamata MLA Mosaraf Hussen, who represents Itahar in the northern part of the state.

According to party insiders, several MLAs have signed both the letters – the one sent to the speaker by Abhishek Banerjee and the letter that the rebel MLAs later submitted. “Are these MLAs aware of the legal consequences of signing both letters?” asked MLA Kunal Ghosh, the most visible spokesperson of the pro-Mamata camp.

He also asked why the letter that the rebels gave had not emerged in the public domain. The party believes the letter was not written on the party’s official letterhead, a point that is likely to be raised during the legal battle for which the party is preparing.

The game may not be over yet.

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