‘Raha gulshan toh phool khilenge, raha Trinamool toh fir milenge’ (Flowers will bloom if the garden survives and we will meet again if the Trinamool survives).
These were the words full of premonition by former West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee during the 2026 assembly election campaign. Her party, the TMC is facing an existential challenge.
Sixty of her 80 MLAs have rebelled. Twenty of her 29 Lok Sabha MPs are also believed to be on the way out. This happened in less than a month. Her special plea to Berhampur MP Yusuf Pathan, whom she had specially picked to contest from the Muslim-dominated parliamentary constituency in 2024, to vacate his seat for her, was bluntly refused and rejected.
It is practically impossible for Mamata and her once all-powerful nephew and TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee to step out of their house. While Abhishek was pelted with stones and eggs, Mamata was herself jeered at with chants of “chor” (thief) during her visit to Calcutta High Court.
The once so powerful TMC proved to be a proverbial house of cards. It has started crumbling and crashing within no time. All that happened in the aftermath of the election results has made one thing clear that Mamata and her party were actually defeated by the people of West Bengal.
Not that there were any doubts about the credibility of the elections as Mamata and the Congress would try to make people believe that these were “stolen”, but the post-result events and developments have only proved that if the TMC got 80 seats, that is a surprise. Given the public anger, it might well have gotten less.
Some of its apologists still suggest that the TMC still remained popular, as its vote share was about 41 per cent, just five per cent less than that of the BJP. That is just a consolation.
Also read: Politics of disillusionment: Bengal’s ‘change of change’
The “popularity” of the TMC was exposed in the Falta assembly segment falling under the Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency represented by Abhishek. He had won from here by a mammoth margin of over seven lakh votes in the 2024 General Elections. After the Election Commission of India countermanded the April 29 elections and rescheduled it for May 22, the TMC candidate withdrew from the contest. Since it was well past the last date of the withdrawal of the nominations, his name was retained in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). He came at fourth place, after the BJP, which won the seat, followed by the CPM and Congress.
Falta election was a classic example of the sharp and instant fall and decline of the TMC that it actually won the last few elections by use of brute force, which was neutralised by the Election Commission of India this time. The Commission had plugged all the loopholes. It obviously did not allow any electoral malpractices by the ruling party. Having been in power for 15 years, the TMC naturally had a strong network of officials, both bureaucrats and police, working within the government, who would influence the elections.
Take the example of Falta where elections were cancelled. The polling officials found a unique method where the voters could be intimidated after casting their votes. The BJP ‘button’ on the EVM was sprinkled with perfume. Obviously, anyone who had cast vote for the BJP would get fragrance on his/her fingers. After casting their vote, many of these people were identified and intimidated by the ruling TMC supporters. They were taken aback as to how the TMC workers knew that they had voted for the BJP. This obviously led to fear and many people avoided voting for the BJP out of fear that the TMC leaders would get to know.
On several machines, adhesive tape was found on the BJP buttons. This would mean that even if people cast vote for the BJP, it would get wasted, as the technical process of casting vote will remain incomplete. For these reasons, besides a few more, the Falta assembly election was cancelled.
The TMC actually did not have any dedicated voter base or cadre. It mostly depended on the “floating votes” without any ideological commitment. Falta assembly result was proof of that. While the BJP won the seat by getting 1,49,666 votes, the CPM came second with 40,645 votes, the Congress was placed third with 10,084 votes and the TMC placed fourth with 7,783 votes. Falta, in a way, actually reflects the state of the TMC right now.
In fact, the TMC did not have any defined ideology. It was overwhelmingly dependent on about 30 per cent Muslim votes, which would vote en bloc for the party. That is why it was said while other parties start their counting from “1”, the TMC begins from “30”. Even of the 40 per cent votes the TMC polled this time, most of that was the Muslim votes. Mamata practically got only 10 per cent non-Muslim votes.
It is like the completion of the ‘karmic’ cycle for Mamata and the TMC. She and her party would precisely do the same thing after winning every election. First, in 2011 their targets were the CPM cadres. In 2021, they targeted the BJP cadres and supporters. In 2026, most of the TMC supporters and leaders deserted the party in apprehension of the retribution they must have feared. By rebelling against the TMC, Mamata and Abhishek, they at least have some consolation that they will not be targeted. Besides, they are suggesting that they were as much the victims of Mamata and Abhishek’s dictatorship as the opposition leaders and workers.
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