As TMC unravels, Mamata Banerjee’s band of loyalists shrinks: Who is standing by her?
Only 8 of the party’s 80 MLAs and six of the 41 MPs showed up at the former CM's protest on Tuesday, while 60 MLAs openly defied her LoP pick a day later.
TMC MP Dola Sen, party leader Chandrima Bhattacharya, party MLA Nayna Bandyopadhyay and others with Mamata Banerjee at Tuesday's dharna at Esplanade, Kolkata. (PTI) The public unravelling of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) within a month of losing the Bengal Assembly polls to the BJP has not only shaken the party’s organisational leadership but left its chief Mamata Banerjee with only a handful of leaders by her side, most of them old party loyalists.
As Mamata hit the streets for the first time after losing power on Tuesday, she was accompanied by only eight MLAs: Nayna Bandyopadhyay, Firhad Hakim, Kunal Ghosh, Biman Bandopadhyay, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, Madan Mitra, Ashok Deb, and Asima Patra. There were also a handful of MPs such as Derek O’Brien, Kalyan Banerjee, Dola Sen, Samirul Islam, Menaka Guruswamy, and Nadimul Haque. All the parliamentarians, except Kalyan, are Rajya Sabha MPs.
Many of the leaders in the Mamata camp — such as Mitra, Hakim, Sovondeb, and Ashok Deb — have been with Mamata since the birth of Trinamool Congress in 1998.
Madan Mitra, the MLA from Kamarhati, has held crucial ministerial portfolios in Trinamool governments and stuck to the party even after he was sidelined.
Firhad Hakim, who is learnt to have received Mamata’s permission on Wednesday to step down as Kolkata Mayor, was re-elected to the Assembly from Kolkata Port. He has previously served in the West Bengal Cabinet, holding portfolios such as Urban Development, Municipal Affairs, Housing, and Transport. Hakim was also named the Chief Whip of the TMC in the Assembly, a move that the rebel MLAs challenged.
Chattopadhyay is a TMC veteran and holds the record of being the only MLA in Bengal to win 10 consecutive Assembly elections. He has been with Mamata since the party was founded in 1998 and was the first candidate to be elected under the TMC banner in a 1998 Assembly by-election. He has held multiple portfolios in successive TMC governments, including Agriculture, Parliamentary Affairs, and Power and Non-Conventional Energy Sources.
Deb, on the other hand, is a seven-time MLA and has held the Budge Budge seat since 1996.
The divide in the TMC became public on Wednesday after 60 of the party’s 80 MLAs went against Mamata’s pick for the party’s legislature leadership team, including Sovandeb as LoP, and submitted to Speaker Rathindra Bose that “expelled” MLA Ritabrata Banerjee was their choice of LoP. They, however, emphasised that Mamata continues to be their leader.
“Mamata should understand that we are with her. We are the TMC but the manner in which the first resolution (nominating Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP) was sent to the Speaker without proper discussion was wrong. A party cannot operate on the whims and fancies of one person. You know who I am speaking about,” said Seuli Saha, one of the rebel legislators.
The division has also triggered a reaction from the Mamata camp, with Ghosh saying the rebels should have raised their issues within the party. “Many of those MLAs (who submitted the resolution) signed it when the party picked Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as LoP,” he said.
A senior Lok Sabha MP, seen as close to Mamata, said the rebels’ actions not only showed displeasure against TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee but also constituted an act of defiance against Mamata. “The developments prove that a majority of MLAs are not under their control,” the MP said.
While TMC sources indicate that the number of MLAs in the rebel camp could go up in the coming days, fears of a similar split in the TMC’s parliamentary party are not unfounded. “Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar has already resigned from all party posts while pointing fingers at the TMC and made her intentions clear,” a source said.
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