Fresh trouble seems to be brewing for Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) as Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy has resigned from his membership of the House and also quit the party, accusing the party of corruption and said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received people's mandate in the recently held West Bengal elections.
Apart from Roy, TMC's Rajya Sabha member Koel Mallick will also resign on Monday, said sources. The TMC has 13 members in the upper House, but the resignation Roy and Mallick's resignations would bring its strength down to 11.
While Roy's tenure was supposed to end in August 2029, Mallick was to remain in the House till April 2032.
This has further speculations that TMC's Parliament members are planning a rebellion against Mamata. Notably, many of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs have recently openly criticised the party trop brass, citing their dissatisfaction over TMC's functioning.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, known for her closeness with Mamata, is also among the dissenters and has resigned from all positions of the party. In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Dastidar has also complained about fellow colleague and TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee, alleging that she was verbally abused by him.
Mamata to move to Lok Sabha
Amid reports of dissent among TMC parliamentarians, Mamata is reportedly planning to move to the Lok Sabha and party's Baharampur MP Yusuf Pathan may be asked to vacate his seat. However, Pathan refuted the reports and said he was never asked by Mamata to step down as an MP.
"For quite some time now, news has been going viral claiming that Mamata Banerjee asked me to resign from my MP seat, Berhampore Lok Sabha constituency, so that she could contest the election from there. Mamata Banerjee never spoke to me about this matter. This claim is completely false. So, neither Mamata Banerjee nor any party leader has asked me to resign from my MP seat," the cricketer-turned-politician said.
It is worth mentioning here that TMC has 29 members in the Lower House.
The development follows a rebellion in TMC in the West Bengal Assembly where expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee has been declared the Leader of Opposition by 57 rebel MLAs. This has split the party, and Ritabrata was declared the LoP after the dissenters secured Speaker Rathindra Bose's recognition.
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