From Didi to Mamata, Trinamool in its last days? 20 TMC MPs join NDA, mass defections in Bengal

NEW DELHI: A major rift erupted in the Trinamool Congress party amid Mamata Banerjee’s visit to Delhi to attend a meeting of the opposition alliance. It is reported that 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha MPs of Trinamool are preparing to join the NDA alliance. Dissatisfied with the removal of the party's chief whip, senior leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar has said that their future politics will be with the NDA, respecting the people's mandate.

Dastidar told the media that 20 Trinamool MPs, including herself, decided to write a letter to Speaker Om Birla, formally expressing their interest in joining the NDA. Akin to the Shiv Sena split, which changed the course of Maharashtra politics, TMC is heading for a similar fate in West Bengal. 58 MLAs, led by expelled rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee, have formed a separate bloc in the state, claiming they are the real Trinamool.

The discontent has been public since the appointment of Kalyan Banerjee as the Trinamool chief whip in the Lok Sabha. Following this, Dastidar, the MP from Barasat, resigned from her party posts and sharply criticised the decision to hand over the party's affairs to political consultancy firm IPAC.

Following the assembly election defeat, the Trinamool Congress is on the verge of going into oblivion in Bengal. There is strong public anger against leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, the party's second-in-command. Many leaders and around 100 councillors have already left the party. Mamata Banerjee, previously respectfully addressed as 'Didi' by legions of supporters, is now being addressed by her name. Political observers said the development vindicated TMC's fall from grace.