West Bengal: Is Sudip Bandyopadhyay the 20th rebel TMC MP for bloc led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar? What we know so far

Amid the turmoil in the Trinamool Congress (TMC), fresh reports claim that Kolkata Uttar MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay may be the missing 20th person in the list of rebel leaders who broke away from the party.

Bandyopadhyay met Union Minister and BJP leader Bhupender Yadav in a meeting on Saturday that also included rebel MP Satabdi Roy (from Birbhum), which led to the fresh claims.

The veteran leader, who is another close aide of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, was not on the list of 20 MPs that wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on May 18, seeking to exit the party.

The rebel bloc in the Parliament, led by Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Satabdi Roy, had expressed their willingness to side with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha.

Photos purporting to show the 19 MPs' signatures in the letter also went viral ahead of their meeting with West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday, which will take place before they meet Om Birla later on.

This 'Ritabrata-model' exit comes on the back of a major crisis for the TMC, sparked by tensions over the growing influence of Abhishek Banerjee in the party.

It comes after Ritabrata Banerjee was the first to break away from the TMC with a group of 60 MLAs after the party's Assembly election loss, sparked by tensions with Abhishek.

Notably, Abhishek had also been against the TMC fielding both Sudip and Dum Dum MP Saugata Roy in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and only relented after Mamata's persuasion.

“Mamata di has made it clear till either of them decide to step down from electoral politics she will continue to field them,” a Trinamool leader told The Telegraph in 2025.

This alienation of the old guard led to further tensions within the TMC back in 2025, when Abhishek was appointed the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha to step in for an ailing Bandyopadhyay.

Now, Sudip's possible exit from the party has sparked a strong reaction from TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, who called him ungrateful.

"Sudip Bandyopadhyay has a history of changing ... he is not good and his politics worked only by misleading Mamata didi," he said, adding that he had once been suspended by the party for flagging such claims, and that those were now proven right.