Trinamool existential crisis

A supporter dismantles an election billboard with a portrait of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee after the party’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly elections in Kolkata on May 4, 2026. | Photo credit: AP

TThe 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections have been one of the most significant elections the state has witnessed in the last few decades, not only because it marked the end of the 15-year Trinamool Congress regime and paved the way for the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, but also because it reflects a crisis in our polity.

In today’s political system, everyone wants to be on the winning side or at least have the blessing of the winning side. Being on the opposition side, where you have to criticize the government and face a barrage of police cases, no longer appeals to the political class.

Therefore, whenever the center of power shifts, the easiest way out of the mess is to shift your allegiance to the winning side, even if it means giving up political loyalty and sabotaging a decades-long political career. This is exactly what is happening with the Trinamool and the so-called rebellion of its MPs and MLAs.

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Those who have seen the workings of the Trinamool Congress up close would agree that it was run more like a fan club than a political party. Mamata Banerjee was the presiding deity and everyone/everything revolved around her. It was not political or organizational acumen that determined the nomination of a Trinamool leader to the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha; everything depended on the taste of the party chairman and, in recent years, the general secretary. The party’s back-to-back victories in the state polls have only added to Ms. Banerjee’s overarching personality in the Trinamool.

This model worked well for everyone, especially the party president, who thought she was in ultimate control of the party, and her loyalists, who knew they had only one job – to keep her and later her nephew Abhishek Banerjee happy and present themselves as committed party workers.

Shattered Illusion

There were a few exceptions like Suvendu Adhikari and Tapas Roy who left the party disillusioned and charted a different political course. Retired bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar is perhaps the only recent exception to have plucked up the courage to call Trinamool’s bluff after the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata in August 2024. However, most of the Trinamool Congress leadership continued to sing odes to the party leader and turn a blind eye to corruption, authoritarianism and misgovernance; all because they wanted to be on the side of the winning team.

Those who have now become rebels are not victims of the Trinamool fan club model, but those who have benefited the most from it. These rebel MPS and MLAs cannot claim ignorance of what happened under the Trinamool government from 2011-26 and now they suddenly realize how the party has failed the people of West Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress’ 28-year experiment is failing not because it suffered an electoral setback, but because the foundations of the party have collapsed. Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee lived in a bubble and were happy to be surrounded by sycophants whose only ideology was opportunism, to the extent that a single electoral failure drove them into a crisis threatening the very existence of the party.

Although the rebellion of about 60 out of 80 MLAs and 20 out of 28 MPs is something the people of West Bengal have not witnessed in the past, between 2011 and 2024 there have been countless instances of civic body representatives, MLAs and even opposition MPs joining the ruling Trinamool Congress. In the 15 years of the party’s regime, nearly 50 MLAs from the Left Front, Congress and BJP joined the Trinamool and not once did the Speaker of the Assembly disqualify any legislator under the anti-detection law. Mamata Banerjee thus became a victim of her own machinations.

In addition, there is street anger against local Trinamool leaders accused of corruption, extortion and election violence, with more than a hundred local Trinamool leaders arrested.

The BJP leadership is aware of the danger of mixing the Trinamool rebels with their own flock. All the BJP is currently promising the rebels is an assurance that everything will be smooth sailing for the next few years.

Published – 18 Jun 2026 0:31 IST