Mamata Banerjee loyalist Chandrima Bhattacharya cited the former West Bengal chief minister’s blaming of the party office in Kolkata – Trinamool Bhavan – by rebel MLA factions as the reason for her resignation from all posts on Saturday.
Chandrima Bhattacharya resigned from all TMC posts on Saturday, a day after TMC legislators, headed by Ritabrata Banerjee, on Friday occupied the party’s rented multi-storey office in Kolkata off the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, saying they represented the “authentic TMC”.
In her resignation letter, Bhattacharya addressed Mamata Banerjee as the former Prime Minister and not as the TMC chief, HT had reported earlier.
On June 3, the rebel TMC legislators, recognized by the state Speaker as the main opposition party in the House, formed the new National Working Committee and elected Arup Roy as their president, a position held by party founder Banerjee. Roy was a minister in the TMC government.
After her resignation from Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, Chandrima Bhattacharya said that Mamata Banerjee spoke to her about taking over Trinamool Bhavan and blamed her for it.
“I saw what happened yesterday. There was an accident at Trinamool Bhavan. After that, Mamata ji spoke to me on phone. She told me ‘I have handed over Trinamool Bhavan to them’. It hurts me… There was no need to say this…,” Bhattacharya told news agency ANI.
Rebels seize TMC office
Most of the party’s elected leaders abandoned Mamata Banerjee after the West Bengal elections, in which the TMC lost to the BJP and was ousted from power.
Resignations, rebellious factions of MLAs and MPs and attacks by white supremacists have hit the TMC which has stuck with Mamata Banerjee hard and is struggling to keep its identity alive under the first ever BJP government in West Bengal.
“This has been our office for years. The landlord said some TMC leaders were not respecting the terms and conditions of the old lease. We told him that we will use three floors of this building from now on,” Mohammad Akhiruzzaman, who was recognized by Speaker Rathendra Nath Bose as the chief whip of the rebel faction in the legislature, told reporters after TMC lawmakers occupied the party’s rented multi-storey office in Kolkata on Friday. Akhiruzzaman, who was recognized by Speaker Rathendra Nath Bose as the chief whip of the rebel faction in the legislative council.
Manto Saha, the property owner, did not speak to the media.
Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the party office as the party’s temporary headquarters on May 3, 2022, though her residential address, 30B Harish Chatterjee Road in Kalighat, remained the party’s registered address. Since the new Trinamool Bhavan was built opposite the EM Bypass, her loyalists vacated two floors of the rented property in June after a dispute with Saha.
On Friday, the local militant movement unfurled its banners, bearing the TMC’s election symbol, the twin flower, outside the building, but did not remove the old banner bearing Mamata Banerjee’s picture. They did not touch her pictures in any room on the first, second or third floor of the building either.
Instead, the rebels raised another banner identifying former minister Arup Roy as head of the TMC, a position held by Mamata Banerjee. Roy was elected as the head of the rebel faction on June 22. As party president, she elected senior MLA Arup Roy in her place, formed a 30-member parallel national working committee, suspended Abhishek Banerjee, and displayed the party’s double flower symbol. Both factions have since submitted rival National Action Committee lists to the Election Commission of India, with each claiming legal control over the party’s name, assets and symbol.
