Mamata Banerjee Must Choose: Party Or Nephew
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-06-11 13:10:28
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
Mamata Banerjee's troubles seem to be never-ending. And, as things turn out, they are mainly due to her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
The latest to give her a jolt is her trusted aide and senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, who stays diagonally opposite her house on Harish Chatterjee Street in Kolkata. Banerjee has always represented the TMC and its leaders in various cases in courts.
But on Thursday, Kalyan Banerjee was at irritated best when he told news agency IANS that although he is with Mamata Banerjee, she will now have to decide whether she wants to keep him or Abhishek. In what amounted to an ultimatum, the senior advocate said that if Mamata Banerjee thought she cannot move without Abhishek, he will have to leave the party. Another veteran leader and Mamata loyalist, Saugata Roy, has also said that she must listen to the grievances, including those against Abhishek, of the people still with her.
Although Kalyan Banerjee has spoken late, he has not said something which is new. Every single TMC leader who has turned rebel or has otherwise left the party said the same thing. That Mamata Banerjee has changed. That the entire party apparatus was now being controlled by Abhishek Banerjee. That senior party leaders had no say in the functioning of the party and had to do Abhishek's bidding. That they could not meet Mamata Banerjee without his permission. That the only reason for them leaving TMC was Abhishek Banerjee. And over the years, this discontent has grown exponentially.
That Abhishek Banerjee hated the 'old guard' in the party, seen as staunch Mamata loyalists, was evident in the way he advocated retirement for people in politics after 60-65 years of age due to alleged decline in work efficiency and productivity. At that time, Mamata Banerjee publicly disagreed with him, countering that experience also mattered. Abhishek later conceded that there were always exceptions but that one incident, first raised forcefully before the 2021 assembly elections, should have given Mamata Banerjee the clue that he was getting in the hair of those who had formed the party with her and had been with her since.
Abhishek Banerjee's supporters would argue that the resistance comes from an ageing leadership uncomfortable with organisational change and accountability. They point out that every political party eventually undergoes generational transition. The problem for the TMC is that generational change is a credible argument when it comes from one disgruntled leader. It is a much harder sell when the same complaint has been made by a succession of senior figures over more than a decade.
When the party kept winning, nothing mattered. But as soon as it lost big time in the 2026 assembly elections, the knives were out against Abhishek. It is now clear that if she has to save the party, Mamata Banerjee will have to make a hard choice. Just apparently clipping Abhishek's wings by appointing Derek O 'Brian and Dola Sen as joint secretaries of the party with him will be seen for an eyewash that it is, especially if Abhishek alone is tasked with meeting all the national leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi with her or alone.
Mamata Banerjee has been here before. Every time a leader walked out citing Abhishek, she chose him over the party. Every time the warning was sounded, she looked away. They were taken as isolated outbursts of disgruntled individuals. Kalyan Banerjee's ultimatum is not a new crisis. It is the final version of an old one she refused to resolve. The 2026 election defeat has only stripped away the one thing that made her silence on Abhishek bearable - victory. Without that, she has nothing left to offer those who built the party with her except the spectacle of a nephew who controls access to her office and a reshuffle that changes designations but not power. Mamata Banerjee is an exceptional political survivor. But survival this time demands a choice she has consistently refused to make.
