As fast as Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) has disintegrated after the West Bengal assembly elections.
The rapid disintegration of Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the West Bengal assembly elections was not even predicted by the political pundits and even by the party's cadre. The heads of 28 municipal bodies, including the mayor of Kolkata, had resigned from their posts 15 days ago. After them, dozens of municipal councilors and corporators had announced their departure from the party. Now on Wednesday, 58 out of the 78 MLAs of the party have formed a separate faction and declared themselves the 'real' TMC. They have also received recognition from the assembly speaker as a separate faction.
These 58 MLAs have chosen the fiery leader Ritabrat Banerjee as their leader and have requested Speaker Rathindra Bose to recognize Ritabrat as the leader of the opposition in the assembly. They claim that the Speaker has accepted their request. This is the first time in its 28-year history that the Trinamool Congress has been divided on such a large scale and Mamata Banerjee's leadership has faced a direct challenge. There are also speculations that a similar operation is going on in Delhi and there too a large group of Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha members are preparing to get recognition from a separate faction.
Such a political development shows that political loyalties have now lost their meaning and political and financial greed have become the dominant factor in political life. Ritabrat Banerjee says that his faction has no intention of having any relations with the BJP camp. At present, their fight is with the evils created in the party by Mamata Banerjee's 'beloved' nephew Abhishek Banerjee. It is clear that the party cadre was angry with Abhishek's excesses and arrogance.
Mamata Banerjee has not even tried to understand the discontent within the party ranks. That is why now the party workers are on the path of venting their inner turmoil. Contrary to the view presented by Ritabrat, Mamata Banerjee is blaming the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party for the split in her party. She claims that the way the BJP first broke the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and then the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the same operation is being carried out in Bengal.
The people of the country will not tolerate such political immorality for long. Despite such slanders being leveled by them, the reality is that Mamata Banerjee has not yet received direct or indirect support from the joint front of 20 opposition parties (the 'India' bloc). It seems that all those parties are also weighing which faction of the Trinamool Congress proves to be more influential. Mamata Banerjee had 'rejected' the results of the assembly elections on the grounds that she did not lose, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission of India, under a common conspiracy, defeated her party through 'vote-stealing'.
On this basis, he did not even resign from the post of Chief Minister. It is a different matter that such arguments were against the Constitution. They did not create sympathy in the minds of the people for his political fate. This is the reason why the excesses being committed on the TMC workers by the BJP government led by Suvendu Adhikari from the very first day are not being opposed by the common people. Ritabrat is a former student leader. He was associated with the CPM and joined the Trinamool Congress in 2018. He was 34 years old when the CPM made him a Rajya Sabha member in 2014.
But after three years, he was expelled from the party on the grounds that his "lifestyle does not match the ideals of the CPM." After joining the Trinamool Congress, his political stature grew rapidly. This political stature has now become the biggest headache for Mamata Banerjee. Mamata Banerjee has been famous for making the impossible possible through her fighting spirit, but Abhishek Banerjee's excessive pampering and unskilled political-administrative authority are now costing her dearly.
