By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Post poll political violence between the rank and file of bitter political rivals – the BJP and the TMC –continues even after a month of declaration of results on May 4, 2026. Former CM Mamata has been alleging that the BJP is intimidating their leaders, enforcing them to quit the party, or suffer the consequences in terms of raids and arrests. On June 3, about 60 TMC MLAs out of 80, are reported to have formed a separate group in the Legislative Assembly, which looks like dismantling of the TMC has entered into final stage, putting TMC and its leader Mamata’s political survival at stake. Wither goes the West Bengal politics from here?
It is of course the biggest internal crisis of TMC, and Mamata Banerjee is finding herself in very precarious political situation. If the split is formalized, she will have only about 20 MLAs in the Legislative Assembly, and her party will lose the status of even the opposition political party in the House.
The larger question at this point of time is that West Bengal will have only a dominant ruling BJP with decimated opposition. The Legislative Assembly will have only weak opposition voices with smaller political parties. TMC will have only 20 members, INC 2, AJUP 2, CPI(M)1 and ISF 1. The splinter group of TMC will have about 60 MLAs, and will enjoy the reciprocal bonhomie with the ruling BJP have 208 seats in the 294-member house. In democratic point of view, this situation is not good. The state will have to depend on whatever BJP will decide, right or wrong, without any warning or opposition voice in the House.
The expelled TMC MLA Ritabrata Banerjee has met speaker of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Rathindra Bose on June 3, and put a claim that he has support of 58 TMC legislators. It has been reported that about 60 MLAs of TMC arrived in the assembly to participate in meeting of rebel leaders. It is a large number, enough for a split without attracting anti-defection law.
Who will be the leader of the opposition in West Bengal assembly now? Answer to this question is still unanswered. Even exact number of the signatory rebel MLAs is not known, but it ranges from 58 to 60.
It is worth recalling that on May 6, TMC passed a resolution which adopted to appoint Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of the opposition. On May 9, TMC’s all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had written to the speaker regarding this with a request to appoint Chattopadhyay the LoP of the House.
After a gap of ten days, on May 18, the principal secretary of the assembly asked Abhishek Banerjee to submit the copy of the resolution and related records for further action. The mysterious gap was still officially unexplained, but it was rumoured that BJP did not want anyone from TMC to be the leader of opposition in the House. It is said that a conspiracy was hatched to split the TMC. On May 20, Abhishek submitted a resolution carrying signatures of 70 TMC MLAs.
In the meantime, TMC MLAs Ritabrata Bandopadhyay and Sandipan Saha complained that not resolution was passed on May 6 meeting. On the basis of this the BJP lodged their complain before the speaker.
On June 1, TMC expelled both the party MLAs – Ritabrata Bandopadhyay and Sandipan Saha – for anti-party activities. On June 2, TMC appointed Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP.
It should be noted that LoP status is yet to be granted by the Speaker of the House. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had earlier said during a press conference that two TMC legislators had filed complaints claiming their signatures on the submitted paper by Abhishek Banerjee endorsing Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP were fake.
TMC supremo has criticized the two MLAs and called them Mir Jafars on June 2 during a protest rally. She had alleged that efforts were being made to weaken TMC and lure away its legislators. She even alleged that party legislators were not being allowed to leave home and cops are telling them to abandon TMC.
While speaking in the protest rally during a sit-in protest, she had said that the party MLAs are being told to form a new Trinamool. Bengal was witnessing bulldozer politics and everyone is being threatened, she alleged.
Former TMC leader and now minister in BJP government in West Bengal, Tapas Roy, has referred “Maharashtra model” in a social media post. What is Maharashtra Model is well known – Shiv Sena was split into two – Shiv Sena (Shinde) and Shiv Sena (UBT). His statement suggests that BJP is behind the dismantling of the TMC. (IPA Service)
