West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | 'Party sidelined capable leaders': Knives out in TMC against Abhishek & corporate culture, Mamata backs nephew

Kolkata: The knives are out within the Trinamool Congress, particularly against Abhishek Banerjee, the party supremo Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and the de facto Numero Due, who is being blamed for the failure to pre-empt the Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in the just-concluded assembly elections.

The “corporate culture” allegedly introduced by Abhishek and I-PAC – the political consultancy firm hired by the TMC – has been on the receiving end of criticism within the party, including from several old political associates of Mamata. The move for an overhaul initiated by the TMC national general secretary was also blamed for the debacle of the party.

The TMC’s tally came down from 215 in 2021 to just 80 this time, whereas the BJP’s score went up from 77 to 207.

Mamata Banerjee’s party lost in 51 of the 74 constituencies, where the TMC had brought in new faces as its candidates, replacing the ones who had been elected to the outgoing assembly. The 15 legislators had been asked to contest from the new constituencies, other than the ones they had been elected from in 2021. Only three of them could win.

The disgruntled TMC veterans have now started giving vent to their ire in public, alleging that Abhishek had played a key role in the selection of the candidates, and he had blindly gone by the inputs received from the I-PAC while effecting the drastic changes while picking up the nominees of the party for the elections, without any in-depth analysis of the ground realities in the constituencies.

“The party sidelined many capable leaders and brought in inexperienced ones,” said TMC stalwart Asit Majumdar, who had been elected from Chunchura in Hooghly in 2011, 2016 and 2021 but denied the ticket this time. “The party’s workers on the ground did not like the removal of the old leaders. Some people had become so arrogant that they believed only they mattered. That led to our defeat.”

Majumdar also criticised the I-PAC. “We never needed a political consultancy firm when we fought against the Left Front’s atrocities and won elections. We did not need to hire consultants,” he said. The TMC lost Chunchura to the BJP.

Manoj Tiwary, a cricketer-turned-politician, alleged that he had been denied the TMC ticket from Shibpur in Howrah because he had failed to meet the party’s demand of Rs 5 crore. Tiwary was a minister of state in the outgoing government led by Mamata. He had won from Shibpur in 2021. “The TMC deserved this defeat. I congratulate the BJP for its victory,” he said, alleging that he had not been allowed to meet the top leadership of the party even for five minutes to discuss development projects in his constituency in the past five years.

“The person who destroyed the TMC bit by bit is Abhishek Banerjee. He did whatever he wanted,” Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury, the chairman of English Bazar Municipality in Malda and a former minister of the TMC government in the state, said, alleging that Mamata had turned a blind eye to whatever Abhishek was doing just as Raja Dhritarashtra in Mahabharata had done to the misdeeds of Duryodhana.

Mamata has risen from the grassroots, while Abhishek has been a new-age leader, Atin Ghosh, who could not retain his Kashipur Belgachhia seat, said, subtly conveying his displeasure over the role of the TMC general secretary.

Abhishek created a second power centre within the party and pressured Mamata to accept his decisions, Rabindranath Ghosh, chairman of Cooch Behar Municipality, alleged. Former TMC student leader Kohinoor Mazumdar accused the party’s national general secretary of centralising power, sidelining grassroots workers and turning the party into a “corporate organisation”. She alleged arrogance, poor candidate selection, and the resentment among the common cadres contributed significantly to the TMC’s defeat.

Mamata, however, continued to shield Abhishek and applauded his hard work at a meeting with the newly elected legislators of the TMC. She blamed sabotage for the party’s defeat in some of the constituencies and also said that while some people might leave the party and join the BJP, they should not be stopped but rather be let go. Nine of the 80 new legislators did not come to attend the meeting on Wednesday, including Kajal Sheikh of Hansan and Bayron Biswas of Sagardighi. Kajal had to go to meet the bereaved family of a party worker alleged to have been killed in post-poll violent attacks by the BJP supporters, while Bayron had a family medical emergency. The absent legislators had informed the party leadership about their inability to attend the meeting.

Abhishek’s rise within the TMC had commenced after the party came to power in 2011, ending the Left Front’s 34-year rule in the state. His growing role within the organisation led to the exit of Mamata’s trusted lieutenant, Suvendu Adhikari, from the party in December 2020. Adhikari, in the past six years, emerged as the most prominent face of the BJP in West Bengal and defeated Mamata in Bhabanipur, apart from winning again from his own constituency, Nandigram. He is now one of the frontrunners for the office of the chief minister of the new BJP government, which would take over on Saturday.