Rebel TMC builds parallel organisation as Anubrata Mondal joins Ritabrata Banerjee camp
The appointments, announced after the group’s two-day working committee meeting here, indicate that the rebels are trying to go beyond challenging Mamata Banerjee’s leadership and build a parallel party apparatus, and their claims on the TMC are pending before the Election Commission.
This exercise marks the second major step in the faction’s strategy after last month’s special session, in which it removed Mamata Banerjee as party president, elected senior MLA Arup Roy to the post, formed a parallel working committee and approached the EC seeking recognition as the “real” Trinamool Congress.
But the biggest political message came from Birbhum.
Former Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mondal, long considered one of Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted political lieutenants, has been appointed chief of the rebel group’s Birbhum unit, making it one of the most symbolically significant transitions since the widening of the split in the party after the assembly elections.
More than the post itself, Mondal’s statement underlined how quickly political equations within the TMC are changing. This also puts him in the same camp as Kajal Sheikh, another influential Birbhum leader, with whom he had a protracted struggle for supremacy in the region despite repeated attempts by the party leadership to broker peace.
The rivalry between the two TMC leaders for years epitomized the factional fault lines within the TMC in Birbhum. Their coexistence under the Ritabrata camp indicates that the struggle for political attention began to outweigh long-standing personal and organizational rivalries. Birbhum is not an isolated example.
Many leaders who until recently represented rival centers of power within the TMC now find themselves sharing the same space under the rebel banner; This reflects the extent to which the party’s internal organization has realigned old loyalties and equations.
While former Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen was appointed as one of the group’s main spokespersons, MLA Arunava (Raja) Sen was elected president of the Howrah district unit. Former minister Rabindranath Chatterjee was given the charge of Purba Bardhaman and Debasish Kumar was appointed president of the South Kolkata district unit.
The group also announced district heads of Paschim Medinipur, Paschim Bardhaman, Bankura, Purulia, Diamond Harbour, Sundarbans, North Kolkata and some other organizational districts, completing what leaders describe as the first phase of its statewide expansion.
Taken together, the appointments suggest that the rebels are seeking to demonstrate not only legislative power but also the organizational network expected of a functioning political party.
This goal is important because the dispute has gradually moved beyond rival political narratives into a contest over organizational continuity, with both groups claiming to represent the original Trinamool Congress before the Election Commission.
The developments come as rival camps prepare to celebrate July 21 separately for the first time since the party’s founding in 1998, and underscore how the conflict has escalated into a fight over the TMC’s political identity and legacy.
Ritabrata Banerjee said that they have received permission to hold a Martyrs’ Day rally in front of the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road on July 21.
The organizational expansion also comes after a series of reverses in the Mamata Banerjee camp following the assembly elections.
Last month, the Ritabrata faction claimed the support of 58 of the party’s 80 MLAs in the contest for the Leader of Opposition post and rejected the candidate backed by the Mamata Banerjee camp. Rebel leaders now claim their strength in parliament has increased to around 65 legislators.
The division also spread to Parliament; here 20 of TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs left and supported the BJP-led NDA after merging with the Nationalist Citizen Party of India (NCPI); Many top organization leaders also sided with the Ritabrata camp.
Against this backdrop, Saturday’s organizational exercise signals that the contest is no longer limited to legislative numbers or legal claims before the EC.
Instead, he entered the grassroots structure of the party, where both camps are vying to unite workers, replicate the TMC’s organizational pyramid and strengthen their rival claims to the political legacy of a party founded by Mamata Banerjee nearly three decades ago.
