West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | A defiant Mamata says won't quit CM post, everything's written in Constitution, says BJP

Kolkata: Though her party lost the assembly elections, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that she would not resign from the office of West Bengal chief minister, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory was the result of a conspiracy by the saffron party and the Election Commission, but not a mandate of the people.

Mamata said that the TMC would hit the streets to protest the loot of the mandate of the people by the BJP and the EC. She also said that she had already received calls from several I.N.D.I.A. leaders expressing solidarity and that she, herself, now being “a free bird”, would strengthen the opposition bloc to oust the BJP from power from the Centre. “

“The question of my resignation does not arise, as we were defeated not by a public mandate but by a conspiracy…I did not lose, I will not go to Lok Bhavan,” Mamata told journalists at her residence in Kalighat in Kolkata. “Why should I resign? We have not lost. Votes have been looted.”

She condemned the violent attacks on the TMC offices, its leaders and its workers, allegedly by the BJP goons, on Monday and Tuesday. “I am a street fighter. I will remain on the streets and fight all atrocities,” said the 71-year-old leader, who had led her TMC in ending the 34-year-long rule of the Left Front in 2011 and had since been heading the state government.

The BJP won 207 of the 293 constituencies, where polling took place on April 23 and 29, and where votes were counted on Monday. The TMC could win only 80 seats. The Election Commission ordered repolling in the remaining one constituency – Falta in the South 24 Parganas district – for alleged irregularities in a large number of booths.

Mamata, herself, lost her home constituency, Bhabanipur in Kolkata, to her aide-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari, who had quit the TMC and joined the BJP in 2020.

Suvendu – the frontrunner within the BJP for the chief minister’s office – also won from Nandigram in the Purba Medinipur district.

The TMC supremo said that she had kicked in her “belly and back” inside the counting centre of Bhabanipur on Monday. “The CCTV was off. I was pushed out of the counting station,” she alleged, adding: “The personnel of the central paramilitary forces deployed at the counting centre behaved like goons,” she alleged, adding that she, despite being a candidate, had initially not been allowed to enter the counting centre.

The five-year term of the current 294-member legislative assembly would end on May 7. The tenure of the Council of Ministers headed by Mamata would also come to its end that day, even if the TMC supremo stuck to her decision not to resign.

“Everything is written in the Constitution (of India). I need not say much on this,” Suvendu said on Mamata’s refusal to resign as the chief minister.

The BJP on Tuesday set in motion the process of selecting its legislative party’s new leader, who would also take over as the new chief minister of the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to come to Kolkata to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the state’s new chief minister and his council of ministers.

The ceremony might take place on Friday.

“We were not fighting the BJP; we were fighting the Election Commission, which was working for the BJP. I have never seen such an election in my entire political career,” Mamata said on Tuesday, alleging that at least 100 seats had been “looted” by the saffron party with the help of the EC. She accused the EC of deliberately slowing down the process to break the morale of the TMC candidates, counting agents and workers. “A black chapter in history has been created,” said the TMC leader, criticising Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for his alleged bias for the BJP.

The TMC and the EC had been at loggerheads not only over the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll in West Bengal but also over the conduct of the elections.

The roll revision exercise in the poll-bound state led to the disenfranchisement of 91 lakh people, including 27 lakhs after adjudication.

The BJP secured 2,91,53,497 (45.85%) votes, while the TMC got 2,59,44,868 (40.80%). The difference of 32.08 lakh (5.05%) votes between the two main rivals helped the BJP win 127 seats more than the TMC.

Mamata said that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress, Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party, Akhilesh Singh of the Samajwadi Party and the chief minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, had called her to express solidarity. Akhilesh Singh might visit Kolkata on Wednesday, she added.