Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee is reportedly considering moving to the Lok Sabha amid reports of dissent in the party in the lower House. The development follows her party's defeat at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, where it won just 80 seats.
According to reports, TMC MP Yusuf Pathan may be asked to vacate his Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency to pave way for Banerjee to move to the lower House. Pathan, a former India cricketer who part of the 2011 World Cup winning squad, won the Baharampur seat in the 2024 parliamentary polls, defeating Congress heavyweight Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury by a margin of around 85,000 votes.
Banerjee has been a member of Lok Sabha in the past and had been a six-time MP from the Calcutta South, which is now known as Kolkata Dakshin. However, she had won her first Lok Sabha elections in 1984 from Jadavpur constituency, defeating CPI(M) heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee. She remained a Lok Sabha member till 2011 before moving to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly after TMC's victory in the state elections that year.
Banerjee's likely step to move back to back to the Lok Sabha comes after several reports claimed that a rebellion is brewing in the party in the lower House. Several senior TMC MPs are reportedly upset with party leadership over its functioning and are planning to quit the Trinamool.
Many TMC MPs have also openly expressed their dissatisfaction. This includes veteran MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is considered close to Banerjee. Barasat, a four-time MP, has also filed a complaint against TMC's Kalyan Banerjee to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing him of verbally abusing her inside the House.
Other than Dastidar, senior MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Roy and Shantanu Sen have also questioned the party's way of functioning.
The TMC is already dealing with a rebellion in the West Bengal Assembly, where 57 MLAs have elected expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition in the House. They have also secured the recongition of Speaker Rathindra Bose, which has effectively split the party in the 294-member House. Thus, if Banerjee decides to move to the Lok Sabha, then the step is likely a move to suppress the dissent in the party in the lower House.
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