Amid mounting dissent within the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Sukhendu Shekhar Roy submitted his resignation as MP to the chairman of the upper house on Monday, while also resigning from the party.
Roy, who has been openly voicing displeasure over the party’s functioning, said: “There was institutional corruption in the party. There was no stock-taking after the electoral setback.”
Roy has emailed his resignation from the party to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and also sent a message via WhatsApp. Mamata is currently in Delhi, along with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee and other MPs Derek O’Brien, Kalyan Banerjee, and Dola Sen, for the INDIA bloc meeting with opposition parties.
“If 60 of the 80 MLAs form another bloc, what does that mean? They do not agree with the party line? Does that what happen?," Roy asked. “Since I cannot work with the party, I resigned".
Roy's tenure in the Rajya Sabha was to end only in 2028.
Meanwhile, there are also talks of a newly elected MP from the party resigning in Delhi. However, there is no confirmation on the same.
The TMC, which ruled the state for 15 years, has been grappling with an intense internal crisis and a wave of resignations over the past month following its crushing defeat in the assembly elections.
As many as 58 rebel TMC MLAs have already formed another faction supporting Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition(LoP) in the state assembly. Speaker Ratindra Bose has accepted the resolution, while more MLAs are expected to join the rebel camp this week.
Senior TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee said the party will challenge in the Calcutta High Court the Assembly Speaker's decision to recognise Ritabrata Banerjee as the LoP, maintaining that only the parent party has the right to nominate the LoP and that its choice was Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.
A similar dissent emerged within the party's parliamentary unit, with Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar resigning from all party posts. The rebel camp claims to have the support of 23 MPs while around 20 of them are holding a meeting in Delhi to secure a two-thirds majority to form a separate faction. The TMC has 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha. The dissent stems from an unwillingness to accept Abhishek, who is also an MP, as their leader.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari is in Delhi for a meeting with the central government on the formalities of the health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat. It is not certain whether the rebel MPs will meet the chief minister.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar had earlier attended an administrative meeting chaired by Adhikari in Kalyani in May, raising eyebrows in the political circles.
