Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 16: Amidst her party collapsing like a house of cards, the Trinamool Congress chief and former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday filed an election petition in the Calcutta High Court challenging the results of the Bhabanipur Assembly seat where she was defeated by the incumbent chief minister Suvendu Adhikari in the just –concluded State Assembly elections.
Once her close aide, Mr Adhikari unseated her by a margin of 15,105 votes from the same constituency which had been electing her for the last three elections. The TMC sources said Ms Banerjee went to the high court registry to “affirm” the petition challenging the result.
Counting of votes of the West Bengal assembly election was held on May 4. After the BJP’s resounding win in the West Bengal Assembly polls, Suvendu Adhikari went on to become the first BJP chief minister of the state.
In another development amid crisis in the party, Mamata Banerjee removed Saayoni Ghosh as the TMC’s youth wing president as part of a major structural overhaul to tighten her grip over the organisation and replaced her with Arnab Banerjee, a youth leader, party sources said. The party has also replaced Kolkata Dakshin MP Mala Roy with Alifa Ahmed, TMC MLA from Kaliganj in Nadia district, as the president of its women’s wing, the Trinamool Mahila Congress. Both Ghosh and Roy have joined the band of TMC’s rebel MPs in Lok Sabha amid a major turmoil currently rocking the party.
The faction of 20 rebel MPs, which feature heavy-weights like Jadavpur MP Saayoni Ghosh, on Sunday moved to further solidify their support to the NDA by writing a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that said the group had merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India or NCPI, which was formed in 2022 and fought its last election in 2023.
Amid a petition by the Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar-led faction of 20-odd rebel TMC MPs led by her to merge with the NCPI, Mr Birla invited the group TMV MPs led by Ms Mamata Banerjee led by Mamata Banerjee to “present their case.” Mr Birla will take a decision in the matter of TMC’s rebel MPs only after hearing both sides. The Speaker’s office was responding to TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s letter of June 10.
The letter had urged the Speaker not to recognise or grant separate status to any rebel TMC faction in the Lok Sabha. Mr Banerjee said the TMC was a “single, indivisible political party” and that the legislative party cannot be separated from the parent organisation and that no breakaway group based on signatures can claim recognition.
According to the Mamata Banerjee faction, the invitation from the Speaker’s office addressed to Mr Banerjee came at 2 p.m. on Monday asking him to meet the Speaker at 4 p.m on the same day. On the same day and time, Mr Banerjee was being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate for 11 hours in Kolkata.
The TMC Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad informed the Speaker’s office that since Mr Banerjee did not have access to his email, he would be informed once the interrogation concluded. He then sought a later date and time for the meeting and reiterated that Abhishek intended to “fully cooperate” with the proceedings of the Speaker’s office. Meanwhile, Mr Azad went and met Mr Birla.
The 20 rebel lawmakers of the TMC on Sunday told the Speaker that they have merged with the little-known NCPI strengthening the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and setting the stage for one of the biggest defections in India’s parliamentary history. “We, 20 MPs, have now merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party and will work with the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,” Ms Ghosh Dastidar said after the meeting with Birla. According to a Lok Sabha functionary, Mr Birla will now verify the signatures of 20 MPs before approving the merger.
The meeting of the rebels with Birla came hours after lawmakers Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad, both loyalists of Mamata Banerjee, met Birla and handed over a letter from the TMC’s Lok Sabha floor leader Abhishek Banerjee. The letter said “split is no longer available under the Tenth Schedule” and TMC is “a single, indivisible political party.”
The NCPI, which came into spotlight after the TMC rebel Lok Sabha faction’s merger with it, has named Jyotiprakash Chatterji as its new president, according to Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. Ghosh Dastidar’s statement came a day after the NCPI founder Shewli Kundu told reporters that she had stepped down as the NCPI chief and Ms Ghosh Dastidar told the media on Tuesday that Mr Chatterji is the new president of NCPI.
Meanwhile, Mr Kalyan Banerjee, in response to Ms Ghosh Dastidar’s complaints to Mr Birla against him said, “The complaint is false, frivolous and after-thought. Complaint is completely vague in character. After 6th May, she had kept her distance from the party. I was appointed as the chief whip, letter was addressed and thereafter she had initially tried to create issues and tried to join another political party.
“So, this complaint has been made motivatedly with a political goal and with a view to malign me. This is a political malice.” Ms Ghosh Dastidar had filed a complaint to Lok Sabha Speaker seeking expulsion of Kalyan Banerjee for repeated verbal abuse and misogynistic comments.
Meanwhile, Abhishek Banerjee on Monday was grilled by the ED for around 11 hours in connection with the alleged teacher recruitment scam dating back to 2023. Following the questioning on Monday, Abhishek made explosive remarks, saying that he won’t cower down even if his throat is “slit.”
“I was questioned for 8-8.30 hours yesterday and for 11 hours today. This is a 2023 case, and I have appeared before the agency 10-12 times. I won’t say whether there is political pressure or not. The less it is said about the BJP, the better it is. On one side, they break our party and indulge in post-poll violence. Even if you slit my throat, I won’t cower down. I will appear before the agency if they summon me even in the future,” he told media.
Keeping up with the marathon questioning by different probe agencies in different cases, Abhishek appeared before West Bengal CID again on Tuesday, in connection with his alleged inflammatory statements while campaigning for the TMC during state assembly polls.
The FIR in this case was filed over a month back following a complaint by social activist Rajib Sarkar at North 24 Parganas district’s Baguiati Police Station, alleging that Abhishek made provocative statements on post-poll violence and vote counting.
The FIR reportedly refers to the statements made by Abhishek while campaigning between April 27 and May 3. “He (the complainant) alleged that certain remarks made during public meetings were provocative in nature and had the potential to disturb public order and communal harmony,” the police officer had said.