Supporters Desert Mamata Banerjee
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 2026-06-03 12:25:10
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
How times change! A leader who was used to see more than 1000 people assemble at her doorstep any day now struggles to draw even 500 supporters in her protest meet. A leader who had to just utter the word before thousands would march the streets of Kolkata in her support now has to ask and exhort the youth to protest the alleged post-poll killings of her party men. If this does not tell Mamata Banerjee why she lost the recent elections, nothing will.
Even in her speech at the protest meet under a bus stop, Banerjee once again blamed the Election Commission and the BJP for having rigged the outcome of over 170 seats in Bengal to overthrow her. She called MLAs who were rebelling against her and, more specifically, against her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, Mir Jafars and traitors who were breaking the party. But she fails to understand that the party was already broken before the elections due to the pent up anger against her nephew and his ways to control the party.
She is unwilling to acknowledge that the people across the state, more so in the districts, were fed up with the extortionist ways of her party leaders and cadre. Cut money became synonymous with Bengal and she cannot deny that she did not know about it as she had herself warned party men to desist from it. But apart from that, she did nothing to stop it. When the time came, people replied to her for her mistakes through the ballot.
If this was not the case, people would have stood by her side now. They would have supported her claim of rigging. But as more and more instances of corruption and extortion come to light (with party men allegedly returning cut money in many places to escape the wrath of the ordinary citizens), even the nearly 40% who voted for her have deserted her.
In the years leading to the elections, whenever a TMC leader defected to the BJP, Banerjee always cited Central agency pressure. She used this when Mukul Roy defected and also when Tapas Roy changed colours. But now, with more than 50 TMC MLAs set to form a separate entity, even that excuse fails to hold water as none of them face any case in which Central agencies can put pressure on them.
Mamata Banerjee has, for now, lost her charisma and her hold over the people due to the wrong policies that were followed by her party in the last 10 years. Abhishek Banerjee wielded extra-constitutional power - in governance and in the party - and that too has cost her dearly. The sooner she realises this, the better for her in her efforts to launch a comeback.
