Why the Trinamool Congress is collapsing like a house of cards

“The more you torture us in Bengal, the more problems you will face in Delhi,” former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had warned the Bharatiya Janata Party on May 24. The Trinamool Congress chairperson was making her first public comments after her party lost West Bengal to the BJP as workers of her organisation were bearing the brunt of post-poll violence.

In the two weeks since then, though, it is the Trinamool whose problems have compounded, both in Bengal and Delhi. A majority of the party’s 80 MLAs defied Banerjee last week by choosing their own leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly. Media reports put their number at 58. On Monday, Trinamool MPs in the Lok Sabha broke into two groups.

MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, a veteran leader of the party, told reporters in Delhi that as many as 20 of the Trinamool’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs had decided to ally with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance to work for the state’s “development”. Banerjee’s party is the third-largest constituent of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance and has been a fierce opponent of the BJP for years.

The leading faces of this rebellion within the Trinamool have trained their guns on the party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, who is the nephew of Mamata Banerjee. They blame him for killing inner-party democracy and accuse him of large-scale corruption that supposedly made the Trinamool unpopular.

However, others in the party allege that the BJP has engineered the split by luring defectors and using the investigative agencies to threaten them.

Both sides might be understating the importance of a third factor behind the collapse: the gradual decline of the party’s organisational structure.

In the name of dynasty

Soon after the results of the West Bengal Assembly elections trickled in on May 4, a host of Trinamool politicians began to blame Abhishek Banerjee for the party’s poor performance. They faulted him for purportedly sidelining leaders who had stayed with the Trinamool through thick and thin and using the political consultancy firm, Indian Political Action Committee, to control the party.

This line of criticism echoed what Trinamool politicians who had switched over to the BJP previously had said about the party, sparking speculation about a fresh wave of defections from the Trinamool. The conjecture only intensified after the controversy over the appointment of the leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.

Though the Trinamool was legally entitled to pick someone for the post, its choice of the octogenarian politician Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay for the role did not immediately receive the BJP-appointed speaker’s approval.

Soon, two MLAs from the party claimed that they had not signed the letter nominating Chattopadhyay for the position. The state police, which now reported to the BJP government, even opened a forgery investigation based on their claims. On Tuesday, the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department raided Mamata Banerjee’s house in connection with this case.

On June 3, these two MLAs held a meeting with several other Trinamool MLAs in which they decided that one of them, Ritabrata Banerjee, would become the leader of opposition. This time, the speaker promptly accepted the choice.

The party has moved the Calcutta High Court against this appointment.

Curiously, these MLAs declared Mamata Banerjee as their leader at this meeting. This was meant to convey that their rebellion was against her nephew, who is the party’s national general secretary.

The sequence of events has led many to draw parallels with Maharashtra, where Eknath Shinde pitted himself against Aaditya Thackeray, the heir apparent of the Shiv Sena, and broke the party. In Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, whom the Hindutva party made chief minister after its victory, is known to have exited the Trinamool in 2020 primarily because of the importance Mamata Banerjee gave to her bhaipo or nephew.

Operation Lotus

But those in the party who have not joined this rebellion dismiss the theory that dynastic control of the Trinamool had led to its split. They instead blame the BJP’s pressure tactics.

“These same people made Abhishek the crown prince and used to call him their commander-in-chief,” MP Kalyan Banerjee said at a news conference on Tuesday. “So what changed? We are no longer in power. Is that it?”

He also pointed out that the Trinamool MPs allying with the BJP had reportedly met at the Delhi home of Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Monday, adding that Suvendu Adhikari, too, had attended the meeting. This, in his view, made it clear that the BJP had hatched the conspiracy and those taking part in it were either acting out of greed or fear.

“They [Trinamool rebels] have become so used to standing with the chief minister that they are still doing it,” Kalyan Banerjee claimed, harking back to Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year reign in the state. “They cannot live without power. They don’t want to hit the ground and play the role of the opposition. Now they will be asked to help in putting the rest of us behind bars.”

He was referring to the string of Trinamool politicians who have been arrested under various cases since the BJP came to power in Bengal.

Organisational Woes

In some cases, the BJP may have attracted Trinamool MPs without dangling a carrot or wielding a stick. Former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, for example, has allegedly joined the rebel group, causing much displeasure to the loyalist faction of Trinamool MPs.

“You are rushing to Delhi because Amit Shah has called you?” Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra wrote on X, tagging Pathan. “Have some shame and some spine.”

Pathan hails from Gujarat and became a first-time MP from Baharampur, West Bengal, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He had defeated Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a five-term MP and former leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, from the seat.

He was criticised for not visiting his constituency after it witnessed a communal riot last year.

Pathan is not alone. The Trinamool has long faced criticism for sending political lightweights to Parliament. And even before it lost in the elections, the party was seen to be relying too heavily on I-PAC, its political consultancy firm, rather than its own grassroots network of workers.

Since the Trinamool’s defeat last month, loyalists like Kalyan Banerjee have also publicly spoken out against what they describe as the Trinamool’s excessive dependence on I-PAC.

Both these factors point to the weakening of Trinamool’s organisational structure, which might be a major reason for its rapid collapse within just weeks of losing power.