How Mamata is losing her party, brick by brick, 28 years after she built it | Explained

IT simply took a hebdomad for the crisis Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool us congress is veneer in Bengal to touch Parliament in Delhi. On Monday, at least 14 members of Parliament of the TMC met West Bengal's BJP chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, a past TMC defector himself, to discuss breaking away from the party and make a separate bloc which would potentially support the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Front.Now, Mamata Banerjee, who was at the helm of power in West Bengal over a month back, having been chief minister for three straight terms since 2011, finds herself fighting battles on several fronts to keep her party intact — Parliament, legislative assembly, and civic bodies. She found TMC in 1998 after breaking away from Congress. Track live updates of TMC crisis hereThe cracks in Mamata's party appeared to show clearly when 58 of 80 TMC MLAs went against her to back Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of Opposition in West Bengal assembly. Now, another key leader of Trinamool, Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, a doctor-politician considered a close confidant of Mamata Banerjee, is spearheading a campaign to split away from the party in Parliament and is working on making that happen with continuous meetings with BJP leaders.All this after Mamata and her party faced a crushing defeat in recently held state assembly polls, which saw the BJP come to power in West Bengal for the first time, that too with a landslide,First betrayal by MLAsWhen TMC MLA Ritabrata Banerjee was expelled by the party over ‘anti-party activities’ along with Sandipan Saha last month, he emerged as the central figure who led a section of rebel TMC MLAs to back him as the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal assembly and solidify their position as the principal opposition, completely cornering Mamata. The proposal was accepted by the speaker of the assembly.Also read: Who's Yusuf Pathan batting for? Slog-overs specialist turns mystery spinner in games within TMCSecond jolt came from Kolkata mayorAnother jolt came for TMC later that week when veteran party leader Firhad Hakim resigned as the mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Friday, June 5. However, he said that he sought permission from Mamata before taking the step. He remained vague in his reasoning for doing so.“Firhad Hakim is no one,” he told reporters, referring to himself emphatically, “It is the chair which calls for respect. Revered personalities have sat on this chair in the past. When I was the municipal affairs minister and the mayor, I ran it (KMC) well. I used to provide relief to the people. That’s no longer possible now. I can’t disrespect the chair. I can’t cling to the chair while being a soldier with arms and armour. It would be disrespecting those revered personalities. That’s why I decided to resign.”Third wave of rebellion in New DelhiAs Mamata turned to INDIA bloc amid mounting challenges around her and attended a key meet of the alliance in Delhi, another similar rebellion was brewing against her in the national capital.Also read: Why the number 19 matters in Kakoli Ghosh's TMC rebellion, and why Raghav Chadha comes to mindKakoli Ghosh, along with 13 other MPs, met CM Suvendu Adhikari at Union minister Bhupender Yadav's residence. Yadav was the BJP observer for the Bengal polls.However, to get protection under anti-defection law, at least two-thirds of MPs need to defect together, which makes 19 the magic number for TMC in Lok Sabha. Ghosh has claimed that around 20 TMC MPs, including herself, have decided to break away from the party to support NDA. However, nothing is official yet.“The letter has already reached the speaker. We have sought separate seating arrangements as a separate bloc,” she said on Monday evening. The purported letter is not public.During one of the meetings, Adhikari said “all of you are senior MPs but you have been badly treated by the TMC brass”, one of the MPs told HT.The meetings came after veteran TMC leader Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resigned from Rajya Sabha and cited “unbridled corruption” and “anarchical rule” of the party as reason behind his decision.Also read: TMC crisis deepens: 14 rebel MLAs meet Suvendu Adhikari, discuss exit as Mamata attends key INDIA bloc meetWhich rebel MPs attended the meeting?According to a viral photograph, among the rebel MPs who attended the meeting were Coochbehar lawmaker Jagadish Basunia, Bankura MP Arup Chakraborty, Howrah MP Prasun Banerjee, Jhargram MP Kalipada Saren, Bolpur MP Asit Mal, Murshidabad lawmaker Abu Taher Khan and Burdhaman Purba MP Sharmila Sarkar along with Kakoli Ghosh and Birbhum MP Shatabdi Roy.The other MPs present at the meeting were Khalilur Rehman (Jangipur), Deepak Adhikari (Ghatal), Bapi Haldar (Mathurapur) and Partha Bhowmick (Barrackpore). Medinipur MP June Maliah joined the second meeting held at Shatabdi Roy's house in Delhi on Monday, people aware of the matter told HT.Which TMC MPs were not present at the meeting?Eight out of TMC's 28 Lok Sabha MPs did not attend any of the meetings on Monday in Delhi. These include Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee, who is Mamata's nephew and being blamed by rebels for their actions; Sreerampur MP Kalyan Banerjee, Krishnanagar's Mahua Moitra, Dum Dum's Saugata Ray, Bardhaman-Durgapur's Kirti Azad, Asansol's Shatrughan Sinha, Jadavpur's Sayoni Ghosh and Kolkata Uttar MP Sudip Bandopadhyay.The MPs who remain loyal to Mamata have maintained that they will not switch sides and that it would be difficult for the rebels to touch the magic number.What next?While nothing is official yet, if the rebel TMC MPs in Lok Sabha manage to touch the magic number, it would leave TMC supremo in a crisis worst ever since she became West Bengal chief minister in 2011. Meanwhile, refusing to back down, Mamata is scrambling for support wherever she can find it and is currently banking on INDIA bloc.Mamata met Congress' parliamentary party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday evening.(With inputs from Saubhadra Chatterji)