Sudip Bandopadhyay: A longtime Mamata loyalist’s second break with TMC

Following Mamata Banerjee’s exit from the Congress and the formation of the TMC in 1998, Bandyopadhyay joined the new party and resigned from his Assembly seat. He contested and won the Lok Sabha election from Calcutta North West in 1999, emerging as one of the early parliamentary faces of the TMC and serving as its Chief Whip in Parliament.

However, in 2004, Mamata wanted to field one of her other veteran lieutenants, Subrata Mukherjee, from Calcutta North West (the seat ceased to exist after the 2008 delimitation) and asked Bandyopadhyay to shift. Unwilling to give up his turf, Bandyopadhyay chose to return to the Congress and won from Bowbazar again in the 2006 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket. However, unable to make much headway in the party and accusing the state Congress leadership of ignoring him, Bandyopadhyay returned to the TMC fold in 2008, a time when the party gained the momentum that it would take it all the way to winning power in the state.

In 2009, he got back his turf as the TMC fielded him from the newly created Kolkata Uttar Lok Sabha constituency. He won the election and his parliamentary presence strengthened further after 2011, when Mamata became the Chief Minister. Bandyopadhyay was appointed the leader of the TMC Parliamentary Party and later served as Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare in the UPA-2 government.

Bandyopadhyay won Lok Sabha elections in 2014, 2019, and 2024, remaining a senior parliamentary face of the party till TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee replaced him last August.

“Even when he quit as MLA, he nominated his wife in his place. It was due to this behaviour that leaders like Tapas Roy and Sajal Ghosh joined the BJP. Kunal Ghosh was even suspended for speaking out against Sudip da. Mamata always trusted him, but after she approved Abhishek as his replacement as the party’s leader in Parliament, he was miffed,” a senior TMC leader said.

Bandyopadhyay’s career has also seen legal and political controversies. In January 2017, he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the alleged Rose Valley chit fund case, a multi-crore financial scandal investigated under Supreme Court monitoring. The Orissa High Court later granted him conditional bail in May 2017, directing him to furnish sureties, cooperate with investigators, and submit his passport. The case remains pending.

TMC turmoil

In recent years, reports have suggested differences among senior leaders over organisational roles and decision-making authority, especially following the increasing prominence of Abhishek in party affairs.

Against this backdrop, and following the party’s defeat in the recent Assembly elections, a section of TMC MPs has formed a separate grouping under the leadership of Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. Bandyopadhyay’s presence in the group remained unclear until recently, with conflicting accounts emerging from party sources, as his wife, MLA Nayna Bandyopadhyay, was seen to be with Mamata Banerjee and was even appointed Deputy Leader in the state Assembly.

Sources said the rebel camp reached out to Bandyopadhyay to add heft to their challenge to the TMC leadership. There were also reports of outreach from BJP leaders.

After it became clear that Bandyopadhyay had switched to the rebel faction, TMC MP Mahua Moitra questioned his explanation regarding his absence from Kolkata and alleged he lied about his health condition to the party. “@SudipBAITC told us he was in Apollo Kolkata with a tummy bug when we suddenly saw him on TV in Delhi in Bhupendra Yadav’s home,” she said in a post on X on Sunday.

Bandyopadhyay was immediately removed from his post as president of the North Kolkata organisational district, with Kunal Ghosh replacing him. The move was seen as part of a wider organisational restructuring within the party that is teetering on the verge of an organisational collapse due to these desertions.

In response to the ongoing speculation, Bandyopadhyay said he had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah for nearly 70 minutes and acknowledged discussions with political colleagues regarding internal dissatisfaction among a section of TMC MPs. He also indicated that he had communicated with senior leaders during the evolving situation, while maintaining that he remained aligned with the party’s broader framework.

Roy and Sajal Ghosh, once associated with Bandyopadhyay in the TMC, lashed out at him. While Ghosh said people “do not like Dada and Boudi (Sudip and Nayna)”, Roy said, “He (Sudip) went to the rebel camp to save himself. He never does anything for the people or the party. He was never loyal to anyone, and Mamata is realising this now.”