BJP & rebel TMC camp 'shared' assembly panels, Mamata-led group kept in dark: Kunal targets Speaker

The Mamata Banerjee camp on Friday stepped up its attack on rival formations that emerged following the Trinamool Congress split, accusing the BJP of creating a “managed opposition” in West Bengal.

The charge came after dissident leaders held separate engagements with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari in Kolkata, developments that the Mamata camp cited as evidence of political coordination with the BJP.

Two meetings trigger attack

More than 40 MPs belonging to NDA constituents, including the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), attended a breakfast meeting hosted by Modi in the national capital on Friday.

Around the same time, a 13-member delegation of the TMC faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee met Adhikari at Nabanna.

The delegation sought the establishment of regional tribunals to hear disputes arising from the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.

The simultaneous meetings prompted the Mamata camp to allege that parliamentary defectors and rebel legislators were working in political coordination with the BJP. Both the NCPI and the Ritabrata Banerjee faction rejected the allegation.

Ghosh targets ‘B-teams’

TMC MLA Kunal Ghosh, aligned with the Mamata camp, accused the BJP and what he described as its “B-teams” of working together to weaken effective anti-establishment politics in West Bengal.

“‘B-Team traitors No. 1’ met the PM, while ‘B-Team traitors No. 2’ went to Nabanna to meet the chief minister,” Ghosh told reporters.

He described the NCPI, formed by dissident Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs, as a politically “directionless” organisation seeking legal and political protection. He also accused the Ritabrata Banerjee-led group of acting in concert with the BJP.

Ghosh predicted bleak electoral prospects for the dissident leaders, claiming their “political careers are effectively over”.

“When they return to the people seeking votes, the people of Bengal will give them a fitting reply,” he said.

Questions BJP’s political morality

Broadening his attack, Ghosh questioned Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah over what he called the BJP’s selective approach to political morality.

He alleged that leaders accused in scams, including the Saradha chit fund case, were being politically rehabilitated by the BJP despite the party's public emphasis on probity.

“If the BJP is serious about cleansing politics, why are leaders accused in major scams being embraced? Before suspending lower-level workers, they should first suspend their own top leadership,” Ghosh said.

Rebel faction rejects charge

The Ritabrata Banerjee-led faction dismissed Ghosh's allegations as “desperate political rhetoric”, accusing the Mamata camp of losing its moral authority as well as its legislative majority.

A spokesperson for the faction said its meeting with Adhikari was solely intended to raise concerns over the SIR exercise and had no connection with any political realignment.

“Instead of responding to our substantive demand for regional tribunals to protect genuine voters during the SIR process, the Kalighat leadership is resorting to abuse and name-calling,” the spokesperson said.

The faction argued that approaching the government over issues affecting citizens was part of the responsibility of an opposition party.

“It is the duty of a responsible opposition to raise issues affecting the democratic rights of citizens before the government,” the spokesperson said, accusing the Kalighat camp of trying to discredit such initiatives.

BJP blames Mamata leadership

The BJP also rejected allegations that it was attempting to construct a “managed opposition”, arguing instead that the dispute reflected the internal collapse of the Trinamool Congress.

A state BJP leader said the emergence of multiple TMC factions, now publicly trading allegations of betrayal and corruption, demonstrated the depth of the crisis within the party.

“The BJP neither needs nor creates B-teams. Those alleging a conspiracy should explain why such a large number of their own MLAs and MPs deserted the Kalighat leadership,” the leader said.

The BJP maintained that the revolt was a consequence of Mamata Banerjee's style of functioning rather than a strategy engineered by the saffron party.

Rebellion grows into split

The latest confrontation comes amid one of West Bengal's most significant political ruptures in recent decades, with what initially began as a revolt among legislators developing into a broader organisational challenge.

Last month, the dissident camp convened a special session, elected senior MLA Arup Roy as chairperson and announced a parallel national leadership structure. The group argued that the existing leadership had lost the confidence of a majority of elected representatives.

The rebels had earlier demonstrated their strength when 65 of the TMC's 80 MLAs supported Ritabrata Banerjee's claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition, rejecting the candidate backed by the Kalighat leadership.

Crisis reaches Parliament

The internal battle subsequently spread to Parliament, where 21 Lok Sabha MPs aligned themselves with the newly formed NCPI.

The party now functions as an NDA ally even as it awaits Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's decision on petitions seeking the disqualification of the MPs under the anti-defection law.

For the Mamata camp, Friday's developments strengthened its argument that the parliamentary and legislative rebels were increasingly converging around the BJP.

The dissidents insist the two meetings had entirely different purposes — the Delhi interaction arising from the NCPI's position within the NDA and the Nabanna meeting focusing specifically on safeguards surrounding the SIR exercise.

With the dispute increasingly moving beyond legislative numbers to competing claims over political legitimacy, the rival camps are attempting to portray each other either as proxies of the BJP or representatives of a discredited establishment, setting the stage for an increasingly bitter political contest in West Bengal.