Senior TMC MLA Madan Mitra Joins Rebel Camp Following ED Summons

Kolkata: In a major setback to the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), senior MLA Madan Mitra on Wednesday joined the rebel camp led by Leader of Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee while insisting he remained a member of the party.

The veteran Kamarhati MLA resigned from all national and state organisational committees of the Mamata Banerjee-aligned "Kalighat TMC" and stepped down as the party's chief whip in the West Bengal Assembly with immediate effect.

"I have only changed my room, not my house. I am very much in the TMC," Mitra said after meeting Ritabrata Banerjee in the Assembly.

Mitra, one of the TMC's most recognisable mass leaders and a long-time Mamata loyalist, said he would no longer hold organisational responsibilities under the Mamata-led faction but would continue as a Trinamool MLA.

His move is the highest-profile defection since the party's organisational split became public and is expected to strengthen the rebels' claim that dissatisfaction within the TMC extends beyond a handful of dissident legislators.

The development came a day after the Enforcement Directorate summoned Mitra's wife and two sons in connection with the alleged municipal recruitment scam, though neither Mitra nor the rebel camp linked the summons to his decision.

Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee strongly defended her nephew Abhishek Banerjee amid the escalating rebellion, saying he had become an "excuse" to target the TMC despite repeated summons to him and his family.

"Had he wanted, he could have got relief. But he did not run away from the battlefield. The way he has continued to fight, all his flaws have been forgiven," she said during a Facebook Live addressing the party workers.

Apologising "on behalf of the traitors," Mamata alleged that defectors had compromised for political survival and accused the BJP of using investigative agencies and police to engineer defections.

Referring to Mitra's switch, she claimed the summons issued to his family indicated he might change sides, alleging that leaders facing investigations were joining the BJP's "washing machine" and the rebel camp. She asserted that the defections would not weaken her resolve and vowed to rebuild the TMC if necessary.