Kolkata : Will Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress meet the same fate as Shiv Sena in 2022 and face a split? Rebellion within a party after an election loss is not uncommon, but the speed of the turmoil within the TMC suggests a split may be imminent. At the heart of the buzz is the forged signature row linked to the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. That the development came a day after 60 of the 80 newly elected TMC MLAs skipped a meeting at Mamata Banerjee’s residence does not augur well for the party.
The anger has been specifically directed at Mamata’s nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee, the de facto second-in-command. From the party’s election campaign to the choice of candidates, everything had Abhishek’s imprint. On Monday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, once Mamata’s right-hand man, stirred a hornet’s nest after he said two TMC MLAs lodged a complaint over the forgery of their signatures in a letter endorsing Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of the Opposition.
To understand the controversy, we need to rewind to May 6 – two days after the election results were announced. That day, Mamata held a meeting with party MLAs at her Kolkata residence. At that meeting, the name of Sobhandeb, her close aide, was proposed for the post of LoP. According to a report in Anandabazar Patrika, everyone raised their hands in support of the proposal. On May 9, Trinamool submitted a letter to the Assembly Speaker, saying party MLAs backed Sobhandeb as LoP.
The Assembly secretary noticed discrepancies in the TMC document. Some signatures were in capital letters. Others only had initials. The signatures were then compared with those in the attendance register that was signed by the TMC MLAs on May 13-14. Around 20 signatures did not match, Anandabazar Patrika reported. The Assembly secretary then lodged an FIR alleging forgery. The internal crisis in the TMC has only given the ruling BJP further ammo to attack the party. At the press conference on Monday, Suvendu alleged that the TMC “cheated its own MLAs”.
Hours later, the TMC expelled Ritabrata and Sandipan for “anti-party activities”. While the party did not explicitly reveal the reason, there was speculation that they were plotting to prop up an “anti-Abhishek bloc” within the party, sources told India Today. Late on Monday night, Ritabrata and Sandipan held a hush-hush meeting with some TMC MLAs at the MLA Hostel in Kolkata. Among them was a woman MLA from West Midnapore.
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