Shortly after news broke that Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Banerjee joined the rebel faction, he was Saturday removed from his organisational position within the party. He previously served as the party president for the North Kolkata organisational district. Sougata Roy, who remains loyal to party supremo Mamata Banerjee, was appointed as an advisor to the TMC parliamentary party.
Not only that, former irrigation minister Manas Ranjan Bhuiyan resigned from TMC primary membership. He was a senior TMC member close to Mamata Banerjee.
According to TMC sources, Sudip Banerjee has been replaced by Kunal Ghosh as the party president for North Kolkata. Also, Sayoni Ghosh, a rebel leader and MP representing the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, has been succeeded by Arnab Banerjee in the TMC youth organisation. Sayoni Ghosh is one of the twenty TMC MPs who joined a rebel faction of the party led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. In the just-concluded Assembly election, Bhuiyan fought from the Sabang seat of West Midnapore but lost.
Nineteen members of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have signed a letter addressed to Speaker Om Birla. This rebel faction, which includes two-thirds of the party’s strength, is positioned to bypass the anti-defection law. They have stated that they will not join the BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) but will support it instead. Sources indicate that Sudip Banerjee is expected to join the rebel bloc, increasing their number to twenty.
Earlier, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, in a desperate bid to keep her flock together, announced a major organisational reshuffle in the party, packing it with loyalists and old-timers. While Mamata has retained nephew Abhishek Banerjee as the party’s national general secretary despite widespread criticism, she has appointed two joint national secretaries – Rajya Sabha MPs Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen – to assist him, signalling to the rebels that the decision will be taken jointly and not unilaterally by Abhishek. Now veteran leader Sougata Roy has been included as an advisor to the parliamentary party.
The first reshuffle comes two days after 60 of the newly elected 80 TMC MLAs defied Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee to choose expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
Within minutes of it, TMC leadership dissolved all the party committees and frontal organisations and, in a statement, said it would carry out a “comprehensive exercise of introspection, performance review and organisational assessment at every level”.
The party has also reconstituted its West Bengal unit by replacing incumbent state chief Subrata Bakshi with former minister and Mamata loyalist Chandrima Bhattacharya. Bakshi, on the other hand, has been appointed vice-president in the party’s National Working Committee.
Also, Sajda Ahmed, Mamata Thakur, Nayana Bandyopadhyay, and Swati Khandekar have been appointed state vice presidents, while Aroop Biswas, Rajib Banerjee, Babar Ali, Pulak Roy, and Ashima Patra have been appointed as state general secretaries.