The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday suffered the first split in its 28-year history after 58 rebel MLAs elected expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of Opposition, wrested control of the party's legislature wing and secured recognition from the Assembly Speaker, triggering the most serious internal crisis faced by Mamata Banerjee's party since its formation.
Within hours of the dramatic rebellion, the TMC leadership dissolved all party committees and frontal organisations across West Bengal in what appeared to be an attempt to regain control amid a rapidly escalating power struggle.
The revolt, which comes barely two months after the party's crushing defeat in the Assembly elections, has exposed a widening rift between the organisation and its elected legislators, raising questions about leadership, succession and the future trajectory of a party that has dominated Bengal politics for more than a decade.
The dissident camp, led by Ritabrata Banerjee and fellow expelled MLA Sandipan Saha, submitted letters of support from 58 legislators to Speaker Rathindra Bose, comfortably crossing the two-thirds threshold required under the anti-defection law to secure recognition as a separate bloc.
"Our claim has been accepted by the Speaker," Ritabrata Banerjee told reporters after meeting the Speaker.
Claiming legitimacy through numbers, he asserted that the dissidents now represented the real Trinamool Congress in the Assembly.
"The TMC legislative party is a team of 58 MLAs who won on the TMC symbol. We are the real TMC now in the Assembly," he said.
The Speaker's decision effectively formalised the first organisational rupture in a party founded by Mamata Banerjee in 1998 after she broke away from the Congress.
The rebel camp simultaneously unveiled a new leadership structure, naming Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of Opposition and Akhruzzaman as chief whip. Senior legislators and party veterans Javed Ahmed Khan, Sandipan Saha, Sabina Yasmin and Shiuli Saha were appointed deputy leaders.
Several prominent TMC legislators joined the rebellion, including Samar Mukhopadhyay, Arup Roy, Rathin Ghosh, Javed Khan and Prasun Banerjee.
Significantly, however, the rebels stopped short of directly challenging Mamata Banerjee's position as party chief.
In their communication to the Speaker, they continued to recognise her as chairperson of the Trinamool Congress while making it clear that they no longer accepted the authority of her nephew and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in the functioning of the legislature party.
"We accept Mamata Banerjee as our leader but do not accept Abhishek Banerjee," a leader associated with the dissident camp said.
Attempting to soften the optics of the revolt, Ritabrata Banerjee even appealed to the former chief minister to continue guiding the legislature party.
"We would request Mamata Banerjee to play the role of chief adviser to the legislative party," he said.
The Mamata Banerjee camp, however, challenged the validity of the rebels' move, arguing that the communication submitted to the Speaker was on plain paper rather than the party's official letterhead. It maintained that only party chairperson Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee were authorised to communicate such decisions to the Assembly.
Unfazed by the objections, Ritabrata Banerjee insisted that all procedures had been followed in accordance with parliamentary conventions and legislative rules.
The immediate trigger for the rebellion can be traced to the controversy surrounding the appointment of the Leader of Opposition following the Assembly elections.
The dispute began after a proposal sent to the Speaker seeking recognition of senior TMC MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of Opposition allegedly contained forged signatures of several legislators. The allegations resulted in an FIR and a CID investigation.
What initially appeared to be a procedural dispute soon escalated into a battle for control of the legislature party and eventually evolved into the biggest challenge to Mamata Banerjee's authority since she founded the TMC.
Recognising the gravity of the crisis, the Mamata Banerjee-led faction responded swiftly on the organisational front by announcing a comprehensive review of the party structure before reconstituting all units.
"After careful consideration, it has been decided that all committees of the All India Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, as well as all its frontal organisations, shall stand dissolved with immediate effect," the party said in a statement.
Notably, Ritabrata Banerjee was serving as state president of the TMC's trade union wing, while Abhishek Banerjee held the position of national general secretary.
Political observers viewed the dissolution of all organisational bodies as an acknowledgement that the crisis had moved beyond routine factionalism and entered the realm of a struggle for control of the party itself.
For many political observers, the developments in Bengal bear striking similarities to the splits witnessed in Maharashtra.
Like the Shiv Sena split engineered by Eknath Shinde in 2022 and the Nationalist Congress Party split led by Ajit Pawar in 2023, the Bengal rebellion has been built around numerical strength within the legislature party rather than organisational control of the parent party.
Yet one important distinction remains.
Unlike Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, who was no longer alive when the Maharashtra split occurred, Mamata Banerjee remains an active political force. That perhaps explains why even the rebels continue to publicly acknowledge her leadership while simultaneously dismantling her authority within the legislature party.
Nevertheless, the parallels remain significant.
The architect of the rebellion, Ritabrata Banerjee, is himself a former CPI(M) leader and Rajya Sabha member who rose rapidly within the TMC after being expelled from the Left party.
Many observers also believe the biggest political beneficiary could be Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, once one of Mamata Banerjee's closest associates before crossing over to the BJP and emerging as her principal rival.
The crisis has also generated sharp political reactions from the opposition.
Both the CPI(M) and Congress argued that the TMC was now facing the same politics of defections that it had allegedly perfected after coming to power in 2011.
According to leaders from the two parties, at least 65 legislators from the Left and Congress camps switched to the Trinamool Congress between 2011 and 2021 during the 16th and 17th Assemblies without facing disqualification under the anti-defection law.
"History has come full circle," CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty remarked.
Senior TMC leader Kunal Ghosh, however, accused the dissidents of betraying the party at a difficult time.
"These differences could have been resolved within the party. This is backstabbing," he said.
The BJP was quick to capitalise on the turmoil.
"Mamata Banerjee has lost control of her legislative party. This is only the beginning," BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said in a social media post.
For Mamata Banerjee, the crisis now extends far beyond preserving organisational control.
The rebellion threatens to create two competing centres of authority within the TMC — one controlling the party apparatus, symbol and finances, and another claiming legitimacy through legislative strength.
The battle ahead is likely to be fought not merely over positions and power, but over ownership of the TMC's political legacy itself.
For a party that has long appeared inseparable from the personality and authority of its founder, Wednesday's developments mark a historic rupture.
The first split in the Trinamool Congress since its inception has emerged not from an external challenge but from within its own ranks, opening a new and uncertain chapter in Bengal politics and raising existential questions about the future of one of India's most formidable regional parties.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee's close aide and senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim stepped down from the post of Kolkata Mayor.
Hakim had earlier sought permission from Mamata to resign from the post, citing difficulties in functioning under the BJP government.
Mamata had asked him not to resign then but allowed him to step down when he repeated the request on Wednesday, according to MLA Kunal Ghosh.
(With inputs from PTI)
