Trinamool Congress
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Leadership
Abhishek Banerjee named LS leader/ 2025
August 5, 2025: The Times of India
Kolkata: Bottled rivalry within Trinamool Congress imploded in spectacular fashion, with the party’s Lok Sabha chief whip Kalyan Banerjee resigning after a public bout of name-calling with fellow MP Mahua Moitra that overshadowed the appointment of Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee as the party’s new LS leader.
The decision to have Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek replace ailing party veteran Sudip Bandyopadhyay as TMC’s Lok Sabha face came at a 15-minute meeting involving Mamata and her 41 parliamentarians. Sources said Mamata took the opportunity to tick off “two to three MPs” for allegedly tarnishing TMC’s image, saying the “party’s interest is above everything”. Serampore MP Kalyan, already sulking after a nasty exchange with Krishnanagar MP Mahua over the latter allegedly alluding to him in an interview as “a pig”, stepped down as chief whip when the meeting ended.
Kalyan, a lawyer by training, said he received a call from Abhishek within minutes of his resignation, prompting him to wait until Thursday “to speak on this further”. Mahua’s alleged remarks about her colleague were made on Sunday in response to an India Today interviewer asking her about Kalyan’s “deeply problematic” campaign against a woman CPM candidate (Dipsita Dhar) contesting the 2024 LS polls.
“You do not wrestle with a pig because the pig likes it and you get dirty,” Mahua said. “...But, like I said, there are deeply misogynistic, sexually frustrated, depraved men in India, and obviously, they have their representation in Parliament. And that is across all parties.”
Kalyan responded Monday by blaming Mahua’s “insecurity” for her outpourings on TV. “When a public representative stoops to name-calling and coarse innuendo, it reflects not strength but insecurity… Labelling a male colleague ‘sexually frustrated’ is not boldness; it is outright abuse. If such language were directed at a woman, there would be nationwide outrage, and rightly so,” he said.
During Monday’s meeting, which Kalyan attended virtually from Delhi, Mamata purportedly “referred to lack of coordination among LS MPs”. “It was atask I was assigned to manage. It reflects my failure. There are MPs who come dressed up and leave Parliament at 11am. But since I am to blame, I take responsibility,” he said while announcing his decision to quit the chief whip’s post.
