Bengal Politics in Turmoil: Madan Mitra Abandons Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool for Rebel Faction

In a massive setback to the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), senior leader and Kamarhati MLA Madan Mitra resigned from all his party positions on Wednesday to join the rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee. Downplaying the gravity of his defection, Mitra told reporters at the West Bengal Assembly that he had “only changed my room in assembly,” highlighting his shift to the opposition benches. His high-profile exit comes just a day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned his wife and two sons for questioning in a corruption-linked case. Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unseated the TMC in the May 2026 assembly elections, the party has faced a severe internal crisis, with a majority of its MLAs already backing Ritabrata’s rebel camp. Mitra launched a scathing attack on the party’s leadership, specifically targeting Mamata’s nephew and TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee. Mitra revealed he had advised Abhishek to temporarily step aside for six months to help rebuild the fracturing party, but the request was flatly rejected. He lamented that the party has been reduced to serving a single individual while the organization “sinks like a dying boat”. While Mitra technically remains an MLA, he clarified that he has severed all functional ties with Mamata’s faction. In response, loyalists of Mamata Banerjee dismissed the rebellion, attributing the wave of defections to greed, political inducements, and fear of central investigative agencies.