Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 4: After a public spat exposing the internal bickering within the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) Parliamentary party, Kalyan Banerjee on Monday stepped down as the party’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha at the behest of the party chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
The TMC also named its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee as its leader in the Lok Sabha. Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of Mamata Banerjee and a three-time MP from Diamond Harbour, will replace veteran lawmaker from Kolkata Uttar Sudip Bandopadhyay, who was relieved of the responsibility because of his poor health.
Kalyan Banerjee announced his resignation after attending a virtual meeting of TMC MPs, chaired by Ms Mamata Banerjee and then asked her party MPs not to fight among themselves and focus on battling the government on Special Intensive Revision and the “National Register of Citizens.” The virtual meeting was attended by TMC MPs from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
As per the MP, the party president had pointed out that there was a lack of coordination among party MPs in the Parliament. “I have quit as the party’s chief whip in Lok Sabha, as ‘didi’ (West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee) said during the virtual meeting that there is a lack of coordination among party MPs. So the blame is on me. Hence, I have decided to step down,” the four-time MP from Sreerampur said.
“I convened a virtual meeting today with all @AITCofficial MPs from both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Given that our Lok Sabha leader, Shri Sudip Bandopadhyay is unwell and undergoing medical treatment, the MPs have unanimously decided to entrust Shri Abhishek Banerjee with the responsibility of leading the party in the Lok Sabha as the leader of the party until Sudip da returns to good health. We pray for Sudip da’s swift recovery and look forward to his continued guidance, enriched by his experience and deep knowledge of parliamentary proceedings,” Mamata Banerjee said in a post on X.
The TMC, which has 29 seats in the Lok Sabha, is a key constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc. The development came amid the latest feud between Mr Kalyan Banerjee and TMC’s Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra. His frequent run-ins with Moitra and a public spat with former cricketer and party MP Kirti Azad had earlier embarrassed the party.
Ms Mamata Banerjee had to put the TMC house in order after a verbal battle between Trinamool MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Mahua Moitra made headlines, with words like “pig”, “anti-women” and “home breaker” being bandied about.
Mahua Moitra, in an earlier podcast with a media house had hit out at Kalyan Banerjee, dubbing him a “pig.” “You don’t wrestle with a pig. Because the pig likes it and you get dirty,” Ms Moitra said, responding to Mr Banerjee’s comments on her marriage to Odisha’s BJD ex-MP Pinaki Mishra. “There are deeply misogynistic, sexually frustrated, depraved men in India and they have their representation in parliament across all parties,” she had said.
Her attack on Kalyan Banerjee came after he had called her “anti-woman” and accused her of breaking a family, following an earlier spat about the rape in a law college in Kolkata. “She calls me anti-women? What is she? What has she done? She is back from her honeymoon. She has broken a man’s family of 40 years and married a 65-year-old man. She is calling me anti-woman?” Mr Banerjee had said, referring to Ms Moitra’s recent marriage to Pinaki Mishra.
Asked about party chief’s silence over the matter, she had expressed confidence that Ms Banerjee would do something about it. But Ms Moitra’s jibe had sparked a long note of protest from Kalyan Banerjee. “Labeling a male colleague as ‘sexually frustrated’ isn’t boldness – it’s outright abuse. If such language were directed at a woman, there would be nationwide outrage, and rightly so. But when a man is the target, it’s dismissed or even applauded. Let’s be clear: abuse is abuse – regardless of gender,” he wrote in the post on X.
“Her choice of words, including the use of dehumanising language such as comparing a fellow MP to a “pig” is not only unfortunate but reflects a deep disregard for basic norms of civil discourse… If Ms Moitra thinks that flinging gutter insults will mask her own failures or distract from serious questions about her record, she is deluding herself,” he added.
The two MPs had gone toe-to-toe after Kalyan Banerjee had made some offensive comments when asked about the possibility of the deployment of police inside schools. “Misogyny in India cuts across party lines. What differentiates @AITCofficial is that we condemn these disgusting comments no matter who makes them,” Mahua Moitra had said in a post on X.