West Bengal Polls | TMC's quiet retirement of old Muslim power brokers

Three old models—cleric, strongman, patriarch—are fading; a new civil‑society type is emerging

Something is shifting within the All-India Trinamool Congress (TMC), and it has received almost no attention. The debate around Muslim voters in West Bengal has remained focused on electoral patterns, who votes for whom, and by what margin. Far less attention has been paid to a more important question: what kind of Muslim leadership is the party building, and why does that profile appear to be changing?

The change is not widely announced, but visible if you watch closely.

For most of the last decade, Muslim representation within the TMC rested on two distinct foundations. The first was religious-organisational authority, leaders whose power stemmed from their ties to groups like the Jamiat and whose identity was inseparable from religion and community. The second was the territorial muscle, leaders who controlled local areas through dominance and factional networks, securing votes through power rather than persuasion. Together, they shaped how the party managed its relationship with West Bengal’s Muslim electorate.

Both models are now being quietly retired.

The new profile

Samirul Islam, the Rajya Sabha MP, a chemistry postgraduate from IIT Delhi, is the clearest example of what is replacing them. He did not come through religious networks or local strongman politics that characterised an earlier generation. His background is civil society and social work, and his politics reflect that. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked closely with migrant workers, a group that exists at the intersection of informality, precarity, and administrative neglect.

The Sunali Khatun case illustrates his political method more sharply. When she faced deportation to Bangladesh, in what critics argued was a politically motivated action by the Union government, Islam did not organise protests or resort to religious framing. He used legal and institutional channels instead. Technical, not theatrical. That is a fundamentally different way of doing politics.

Pratik ur Rahaman, who recently crossed over to the TMC from the CPI(M), fits a similar profile: young, organisationally experienced, from a modest background, with no religious affiliations, and, like Islam, a product of mainstream Bengali political culture who happens to be Muslim.

What is being phased out

The old model was never a single thing. Siddikullah Chowdhury represents the religious-organisational; his authority has always been inseparable from community and faith networks.

Useful earlier, but a persistent liability now, weaponised by opponents as evidence of appeasement.

Arabul Islam was different, territorial rather than religious, built through local dominance. His departure from the party, followed by his candidature from the Indian Secular Front (ISF) in Canning East, clearly signals where the TMC now stands on this style of politics. Saokat Molla’s shift from Canning East to Bhangar, where he faces the ISF’s Nawsad Siddiqui, follows a similar logic.

The shift becomes clearer. Firhad Hakim was never a religious mobiliser or a strongman, but the most prominent Muslim face of the party’s urban establishment for years, and has seen his political footprint shrink under Abhishek Banerjee’s consolidation. Even the senior patriarch administrator model is being deprioritised.

The ISF factor

The change is not happening on its own. The ISF and Nawsad Siddiqui, specifically, have demonstrated that there is a genuine electoral market among young Bengali Muslims for the kind of politics the TMC is now trying to cultivate. It is now trying to close it, not by outbidding the ISF on religious grounds, but on a different axis: practical problem-solving and delivering results in people’s everyday lives.

Risk the party cannot ignore

In the short term, the party may adopt a hybrid approach, retaining older networks while building new grassroots support. This election still requires ground mobilisation. The older leaders, despite being liabilities, are good at this. The new profiles are better at working with institutions and handling administration. But it is unclear whether people like Samirul Islam and Pratik ur Rahaman can build the same grassroots networks needed to win elections without reverting to the old-style politics they are trying to move away from.

There is also a risk of backlash. Older networks do not dissolve quietly. Arabul Islam’s move to the ISF is partly a story of exactly this: a leader who felt used and sidelined, taking his networks with him. The TMC’s ability to manage these transitions without losing ground support will determine whether this shift succeeds or simply creates new vulnerabilities.

A reconfiguration, not a revolution

Identity does not disappear in Indian politics; it just changes form. The question is no longer who speaks for Muslims, but who can get things done for them. Three older models of Muslim political leadership are being quietly retired: the religious organisational, the local strongman, and the senior patriarch-administrator. Whether the new profile can deliver both sophistication and the street-level strength that West Bengal politics demands is the question this election may begin to answer.

Sumanta Roy is a PhD student, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, USA, and Arghya Protim Bala is a doctoral candidate, Department of History, Presidency University, Kolkata. X: @SumantaRoyy, @arghya_bala.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)