TMC in Turmoil: Rebels Grow as Banerjee Purges Dissenters

Trinamool Congress is facing its gravest internal crisis in years. Senior leader Sudip Banerjee was swiftly removed from his position as party president of the North Kolkata organisational district after he joined a growing rebel faction challenging Mamata Banerjee’s authority. Simultaneously, former irrigation minister Manas Ranjan Bhuiyan, a long-time Mamata loyalist, resigned from the party’s primary membership, deepening the leadership’s troubles.

Rebel Bloc Strengthens Its Numbers

The rebel faction, now comprising twenty TMC Members of Parliament, has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Crucially, the group represents two-thirds of the party’s parliamentary strength — enough to legally bypass the anti-defection law. The rebels have clarified they will not formally join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance but will support it from outside, a calculated political manoeuvre that keeps them legally protected while effectively undermining Mamata’s influence in Parliament.

Kunal Ghosh has replaced Sudip Banerjee as North Kolkata’s party president, while veteran leader Sougata Roy has been appointed advisor to the TMC parliamentary party. Rebel MP Sayoni Ghosh of Jadavpur has also been replaced in the party’s youth organisation by Arnab Banerjee.

Mamata Scrambles to Consolidate Control

Mamata Banerjee has responded with an aggressive organisational overhaul, replacing state chief Subrata Bakshi with loyalist Chandrima Bhattacharya and appointing joint national secretaries Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen alongside nephew Abhishek Banerjee. The reshuffle follows a dramatic moment when sixty of TMC’s eighty newly elected MLAs defied party leadership to elect expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of Opposition, signalling that dissent has spread well beyond Parliament.