A month after losing power in West Bengal, and just days after the 58 MLA rebels took control of its legislature, the TMC finds itself facing a question that was unthinkable just a month ago: Can a party built around Mamata Banerjee survive when her power over it is no longer absolute?
For nearly three decades, the TMC’s bylaws were based on one indisputable fact: Mamata Banerjee was the party, and Mamata Banerjee was the party. For the first time in its history, this equation is being challenged.
What began as a rebellion within the Assembly has evolved into a struggle over legislators, potentially spilling over into Parliament, succession, control of the “flower and grass” symbol (jora jas phul), and perhaps the future of one of India’s most powerful regional parties.
For the first time since the party was founded in 1998, after her break with the Congress, Banerjee faces an unprecedented challenge – with a section of her elected representatives trying to separate the leader from the political structure she has built.
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The crisis facing the TMC is no longer about loss of power. It is about losing the leadership’s monopoly on loyalty. The rebels continue to acknowledge her leadership while rejecting the authority of her nephew and political heir, Abhishek.
While the immediate battle is taking place within the assembly and organization, many TMC leaders privately admit that their biggest concern is how to prevent the unrest from eventually spreading to Parliament.
This concern does not stem from any formal rebellion among members of parliament, but rather from fears that a successful legislative revolution would encourage similar attempts elsewhere.
“The BJP may try to make a run in the TMC’s Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, similar to what happened in the West Bengal Assembly. But Mamata Banerjee has put up bigger fights and she will bounce back,” TMC MP Sujata Roy said.
While there is no indication yet of any organized rebellion among MPs, his statements confirm fears within the party that the crisis may not end with a split in the chamber.
“The BJP already has the government in Bengal. It is Parliament where they do not have the numbers,” a senior TMC MP said.
With 28 members in the Lok Sabha and 13 members in the Rajya Sabha, the TMC remains one of the largest opposition parties in Parliament. Any significant erosion would weaken not only Mamata Banerjee’s national standing, but also the collective strength of the opposition bloc.
Therefore, for the TMC, containing the insurgency has become as important as rebuilding the organization.
The developments have inevitably invited comparisons with Maharashtra. Like the Shiv Sena split engineered by Eknath Shinde and the NCP rebellion led by Ajit Pawar, the Bengal revolution was built around legislative calculations rather than organizational control.
However, there is one important difference. In contrast to Bal Thackeray during the Sena split, Mamata Banerjee remains politically active and retains emotional resonance among large sections of voters in Bengal.
But Maharashtra also offers a warning. Both Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar initially believed that political legitimacy would trump legislative numbers. Ultimately, each found themselves fighting not just for their legislators, but for ownership of their parties.
This possibility now looms over the Transitional Military Council. The rebels have already claimed to represent the “real Transitional Military Council.” If the rival faction contacts the Election Commission, the battle could move from the Assembly hall to the legal corridors.
Depending on legislative strength, organizational support and the provisions of the party constitution, the EC could award the grass flower symbol to one faction, freeze it or direct the two groups to compete under new symbols.
The grass flower is not just an electoral symbol. It is the visual identity of the movement that ended the Left Front’s 34-year rule. For millions of voters, the icon and Mamata Banerjee are almost inseparable.
Few parties in contemporary India have benefited more from political migration than the TMC. MLAs from the Congress, the Left and the BJP have crossed waves during their years in power, helping it expand while weakening rivals.
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The Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Congress said the TMC, which had “mastered defections”, may now face the same political vehicle that had previously fueled its rise.
The crisis revives a possibility that would have seemed absurd until recently: strategic rapprochement with Congress. Banerjee built her political career by rebelling against Congress and later sought to replace it as the main pole of opposition politics.
But with the TMC under siege and the BJP on the rise, some observers believe survival may now require what it once rejected: closer understanding with the same party it quit nearly three decades ago.
“If the goal becomes to maintain anti-BJP political space rather than maintain organizational purity, a closer arrangement between the Congress and the TMC cannot be ruled out,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said.
TMC MP Sudeep Bandyopadhyay remains dismissive of the rebels. “Those who left Mamata Banerjee have no political status without her. Whatever their situation is today is because of Mamata Banerjee,” he said.
The leadership of the Transitional Military Council is relying on this proposal. After all, this is not the first time Mamata Banerjee has been written off. The TMC was reduced to a single LS seat in 2004 before making a significant comeback via the Singur-Nandigram movement and eventually seizing power in 2011.
But analysts warn that this crisis is radically different. Then she was fighting from the opposition benches. Today, it is trying to rebuild after 15 years in power, amid organizational fatigue, succession disputes, and loss of political immunity.
MP RS Sukhendu Sekhar Roy warned that the party could “disintegrate and cease to exist”.
For a party that once seemed inseparable from its founder, this is perhaps the most important question of all. The next battle is no longer about winning the elections. It is about preventing the grass flower symbol from becoming a relic of Bengal’s political past.
