Mamata Banerjee Sacks Saayoni Ghosh and Mala Roy Amid TMC Rebellion

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee removed Jadavpur MP Saayoni Ghosh as the party's youth wing president and replaced her with youth leader Arnab Banerjee.

The party faces an existential crisis following a severe electoral drubbing in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls and a subsequent state assembly mutiny. The TMC also replaced Kolkata Dakshin MP Mala Roy with Kaliganj MLA Alifa Ahmed as the president of the Trinamool Mahila Congress on Saturday.

The abrupt leadership changes occurred barely a week after a major structural overhaul. On June 5, Mamata Banerjee reconstituted the organisational committee -- after dissolving all its former committees and frontal organisations across Bengal -- packing the new leadership structure with party loyalists and old-timers, naming Ghosh and Roy to those very posts just a week prior.

Both ousted leaders are now perceived to have joined a growing band of rebel TMC lawmakers in the Lok Sabha. The crisis threatens to further splinter the embattled party as loyalists prepare to step into vacant roles.

Rebel Faction Seeks Recognition

The dissident lawmakers plan to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday with a letter seeking recognition as the "real TMC," PTI reported. The breakaway faction said that 20 of the party's 28 Lok Sabha members, including Ghosh and Roy, have signed the document.

The rebel camp allegedly gained further momentum on Saturday when senior MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay joined their ranks. Dissident MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said that the bloc would support the BJP-led NDA in Parliament once officially recognised.

"These replacement decisions were already taken at a party meeting held three days ago," an unnamed senior Rajya Sabha MP of the TMC told PTI.

"Mamata didi doodh kola diye shaap pushechhilo (Mamata didi had nurtured people with milk and honey, but they turned out to be snakes)," the same MP said referring to the 20 dissenting Lok Sabha members.

Loyalists Assume New Roles

To fill the vacancies left by the defecting lawmakers, the TMC leadership appointed loyalists to key positions. The TMC named Beleghata MP Kunal Ghosh president of the North Kolkata organisational district, replacing Bandyopadhyay, PTI reported.

"In the wake of the recent developments, the party has asked me to shoulder responsibilities for the post," Kunal Ghosh told reporters, according to PTI.

The party named veteran parliamentarian Saugata Roy chief advisor of the TMC's Lok Sabha wing. The party's Lok Sabha presence currently stands at eight MPs who still owe allegiance to Mamata Banerjee.

During the June 5 restructuring, the party chief also reappointed Diamond Harbour MP and her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, as the TMC's national general secretary.