Big rift in Mamata Banerjee’s party, 58 TMC MLAs rebel along with Ritabrata Banerjee, get Speaker’s approval

A big upheaval is being seen in the politics of West Bengal. There is a split in Mamata Banerjee’s TMC. The Speaker of the Assembly has approved 58 rebel leaders, including MLA Ritabrata Banerjee, who was expelled from the party. The Speaker recognized Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition. Under the leadership of Ritabrata Banerjee, 60 MLAs met Speaker Rabindra Nath Bose and told him that they are the real faction of TMC and Ritabrata Banerjee should be recognized as the Leader of Opposition. Ritabrata Banerjee claims that he has 60 MLAs with him and that is the real TMC. Akhruzzaman has been made Chief Whip.

Ritabrata Banerjee, rebel MLA Sandipan Saha and several disgruntled MLAs met the Assembly Speaker and submitted letters of support signed by 58 MLAs. He also proposed a new leadership team, in which Ritabrata was said to be the leader of the legislature party, Javed Khan, Sandipan Saha and Shiuli Saha were made deputy leaders and Raghunathganj MLA Akhruzzaman was made the chief whip.

This incident happened after the meeting of rebel MLAs in the assembly. None of the MLAs who attended the assembly meeting were present at the protest by former Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee held in central Kolkata on Tuesday (June 2, 2026). On the other hand, leaders like Shobhandev Chattopadhyay, Nayana Bandyopadhyay, Madan Mitra and Kunal Ghosh, considered close to the Trinamool leadership, stayed away from the meeting held in the Assembly on Wednesday (June 3, 2026). Under the anti-defection law, support of at least two-thirds of the members of the legislative party is required for a faction to avoid disqualification. Considering 80 Trinamool MLAs, this limit becomes 54.

Mamata Banerjee had suspended Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Shah from TMC after the election results due to anti-party activities. After this, the news of rebellion in TMC started coming out openly. Ritabrata Banerjee said that we will play the role of opposition and do positive politics. Ritabrata has not opposed former CM Mamata Banerjee. He said that our leader is Mamata Banerjee and we hope that she will continue to show us direction.