Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s close aide, Kamarhati legislator Madan Mitra, crossed into the rebel camp led by Ritabrata Banerjee on Wednesday, blaming the party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, for the current internal crisis.
“From this moment, I will resign from the National Working Committee, the post of Chief Whip of the Assembly and the post of Trinamool Congress General Secretary of Mamata Banerjee. I was in the Trinamool Congress and I stayed there,” Mitra said after joining the rebel group in Ritabrata Banerjee’s chamber in the state Assembly in the presence of other Trinamool Congress members. “I’m just changing rooms.”
Mitra, who was with Mamata Banerjee since 1998 when the party was founded, left the Mamata Banerjee-led faction a day after the Enforcement Directorate sent summons to his wife and two sons for questioning over alleged corruption in recruitment by Kamarhati municipality. They were asked to come to the emergency department office on July 21 and 22.
The MP was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on December 12, 2014, in the Saradha chit fund case and was 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.
“My family has been summoned by a federal agency. My family will go and cooperate with the agency. But this has nothing to do with me joining (the rebels) today,” said Mitra, who was also a minister in the TMC government.
Ritabrata Banerjee said the collective efforts of the rebel group to fight family-controlled politics within the party have been strengthened with Mitra’s accession.
“Our collective fight is against family-controlled politics. Our collective efforts have become stronger today. Mitra is a veteran,” he said.
Mitra recited a Bengali poem that says an old man has to decide which bridge he can cross and which bridge he cannot, and squarely blamed TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for the party’s current state, with more than 60 out of 80 MLAs and 20 out of 28 MLAs leaving the Lok Sabha so far.
“It is really sad that when history is written, it will say that a party was destroyed because of just one person,” Mitra said.
“Abhishek wants the party to just follow his orders. He does not listen to anyone. Millions of our workers are helpless today. We have to take care of them. If the party is not taken care of now, we will never be able to defeat the BJP. Abhishek will never be able to defeat the BJP,” Mitra said.
In February 2025, Mitra became the first whistleblower by raising allegations of corruption within the TMC.
He accused the TMC’s election advisor, India Political Action Committee, of tarnishing Mamata Banerjee’s image and collecting money from party leaders seeking election tickets and glamorous posts. He told the media that Abhishek Banerjee, who played the key role in appointing I-PAC, is not a great leader like his aunt.
With Mitra’s exit, only a few leaders, including Lok Sabha members Saujata Roy and Mahua Moitra and Rajya Sabha members Dula Sen, Sagarika Guah and Derek O’Brien, remained in the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC as of Wednesday.
In May 2021, Mitra was arrested by the CBI along with three other Mamata Banerjee loyalists – Firhad Hakim, the then minister and mayor of Kolkata, minister Subrata Mukherjee and former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee.
Al-Hakim joined the rebel camp in June after resigning as mayor of the city. Chatterjee, who has left active politics, did not clarify his position on the current crisis. Subrata Mukherjee died in 2021.
“I thank Mamata Banerjee for staying by our side all these years,” Mitra said on Wednesday.
Mamata Banerjee’s camp is yet to react to the development.
