Rohit Kumar
NEW DELHI, July 15: Even though he refused to admit, a close aide of the former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and a minister in her cabinet, Madan Mitra on Wednesday quit the Trinamool Congress and joined the rebel camp supporting the ruling BJP a day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) send summons to his wife and two sons for questioning in the municipal recruitment scam..
Mr Mitra, the MLA elected from Kamarhati, was one of the old loyalists of Ms Banerjee and recently she had nominated him as the chief whip of the MLAs supporting her in the Assembly. On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Mitra went to the chamber of the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Ritabrata Banerjee and was seen sitting next to him wearing black sunglasses. “I was in the Trinamool, I remained in the Trinamool. I just went from this room to that room,” the veteran Trinamool leader, who was also a Minister in Mamata Banerjee government, said.
Mr Mitra refuted Ms Banerjee’s claims that he switched over to the rebel camp because of the ED summons to his family members. He claimed there was no connections between the two actions. “My family has been summoned by a federal agency. My family will go and cooperate with the agency. But that is not linked to my joining (the rebels) today,” Mitra claimed.
Mitra himself had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2014 in the Saradha chit fund case and released on bail after 629 days. He was arrested again by the CBI in May 2021 in the 2014 Narada sting operation case on bribery charges.
Mitra, who served as minister under Mamata, said he wanted her nephew and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who has been blamed by many rebels for the TMC debacle, to “step aside for six months” but quit when that demand was not accepted.
Mitra earlier held at a press conference, seated next to Ritabrata, who has most of the 80 TMC MLAs with him and is the Leader of Opposition in the assembly at present. “I told (Abhishek), let us build the party, and then you can come back and take your seat, but he refused. He said, ‘I won’t leave the party.’ The party is sinking; the boat has gone under. People are dying. Yet, the party decided or rather it was forced to accept that everyone else could die, but Abhishek had to be saved. It is deeply saddening,” he said.
After the defeat in the West Bengal polls, several of Ms Banerjee’s loyalists have deserted her, joining other political camps. Mr Mitra joined the long list of leaders such as Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas and Chandrima Bhattacharya who have joined the Ritabrata Banerjee camp. Twenty of the Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs have deserted Ms Banerjee, and three Rajya Sabha MPs have resigned only to be re-nominated to the Upper House as BJP candidates.
Mr Mitra said he sent a message to the Trinamool chairperson saying “sorry” before joining the other camp. “She (Mamata Banerjee) has been by our side for a long time. We have also tried to do more or less,” he said.
Mitra further said, “The party belongs to everyone, yet it seems to have been reduced to serving only Abhishek. I sincerely request Mamata ji to come, let us view this as a marathon. We will surely cross paths along the way. Let us see which horse surges ahead. I have resigned from all the positions. Though I remain an MLA. I have left everything associated with Trinamool. That means I am no longer a Trinamool MLA in the functional sense,” Mitra said.
Mamata, Abhishek and the MPs who are still with them, such as Mahua Moitra, have alleged that the “rebellion” is because of inducements, greed, or fear of the BJP and the central agencies under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government at the Centre.
In June, the ED had searched seven locations in Kolkata and its adjoining areas, including the Trinamool Congress legislator’s residences in Bhawanipur and Kalighat. Raids were also carried out at premises in Dakshineswar, Santoshpur, Joka and Beleghata. In October 2025, too, the CBI had searched Mitra’s residence in connection with the same case and examined documents for nearly five hours.
The alleged scam pertains to irregularities in appointments to various civic bodies in West Bengal, and is being investigated separately by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), based on the main offenses registered by the CBI.
Ms Banerjee, however, attacked the BJP saying the ruling party wished her to suffer a heart attack, but she said she would live to see the end of BJP. “BJP wished for me to get a heart attack, I will live till I see your end,” she said. Responding to Mitra’s exit, she said he left because of the ED summons to his wife and two sons and that Abhishek Banerjee had nothing to do with it. Abhishek, she said, had become an ‘excuse’ for attacks on the party despite repeated summons issued to him and his family members and praised him for continuing the political battle instead of seeking ‘relief’ through compromise.
“Abhishek Banerjee has been turned into an excuse. His family members were summoned. Had he wanted, he could have got relief. But he did not run away from the battlefield. The way he has continued to fight, all his flaws have been forgiven,” said the TMC chief during a Facebook live on Wednesday.
Slamming the defectors, Mamata said, “I apologize before the people on behalf of the traitors. I have not sold my ‘bibek’ (conscience) for political survival.” TMC chief alleged that she and her family had been subjected to sustained political persecution because they had refused to compromise.
“Had I compromised, we would not have faced so much torture. Those who have compromised have many bags and luggage of their own,” she said in an apparent swipe at leaders who have switched allegiance.
Claiming that the BJP was using investigative agencies and police to engineer defections, Mamata alleged that many leaders had crossed over out of fear. “We still have 18 MPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Those Parliamentarians who have joined the ‘setting company’ have done so because they are afraid of the police,” she claimed.
Reacting to Mitra quitting the party, TMC leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said, “…I am sad that he had to leave us and go. There was no need for him to quit. But they summoned his son and wife. So, he must have lost his mental strength and had to quit.”
Meanwhile, in the neighboring Bihar, several leaders and workers of the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), founded by the election strategist – turned – politician Prashant Kishor, joined the BJP in a major setback to Kishor who is contesting his life’s first electoral battle for the Bankipur state Assembly seat in a byelection. Those inducted into the BJP by the party’s State president Sanjay Saraogi included renowned mathematician KC Sinha and Ritesh Ranjan alias Bittu Singh, who had contested as Jan Suraaj candidates from the adjoining Kumhrar and Digha seats, respectively.
“Inspired by the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, there has been a rush among politicians of opposition parties across the country to join the saffron party. People from all over the country want to join it,” Mr Saraogi told reporters. He said the new entrants would strengthen the party organisation.
Mr Sinha said he joined the BJP to contribute towards making India a global leader through education. “In the current situation, national interest is paramount. Amid the clouds of war hovering across the world, the hands of the central government need to be strengthened so that India’s voice can resonate globally. India had once led the world as a Vishwaguru and must regain that position, especially through excellence in education,” he said.
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