Amid speculation that she might join the group of rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha MPs, Saayoni Ghosh, the TMC MP from Jadavpur, arrived in the national capital on Sunday but remained tight-lipped about the developments.
Speaking to reporters at the airport, Ghosh declined to comment on the issue, saying, “I will not say anything now. I will only speak when the time is right.”
Her arrival in Delhi comes a day before a proposed meeting between the rebel TMC Lok Sabha MPs and Speaker Om Birla, where they are expected to request a separate seating arrangement for themselves in the Lower House.
Meanwhile, another TMC MP, Mala Roy, also reached the national capital amid the continuing political rebellion within the party.
As of now, a total of 58 TMC MLAs in West Bengal and 20 Lok Sabha MPs have reportedly rebelled against Mamata Banerjee.
On Saturday, TMC’s Kolkata North MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay met Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav at his New Delhi residence along with rebel MP Satabdi Roy.
Within hours of the meeting, the TMC relieved Bandyopadhyay of his role as president of the party’s North Kolkata organisational district and replaced him with state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.
Bandyopadhyay drew sharp criticism from his own party colleagues after Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra launched a strong attack on the senior leader, accusing him of misleading the party about his whereabouts before he was spotted at the New Delhi residence of Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
In a post on X, Moitra claimed that Bandyopadhyay had informed party leaders that he was admitted to a hospital in Kolkata due to a stomach ailment. However, she alleged that he was later seen on television at the residence of the Union Environment Minister in the national capital.
“His mask & his wig both come off – Sudip Bandyopadhyay told us he was in Apollo Kolkata with a tummy bug when we suddenly saw him on tv in Delhi in Bhupender Yadav home. Dada pls change your X handle to @SudipBJPBTeam at least. Don’t use our name,” Moitra wrote in her post on X.
So far, 19 of the TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs have backed the proposal to establish a separate parliamentary group in the Lower House.
Meanwhile, in the West Bengal Assembly, 64 of the party’s 80 MLAs, under the leadership of Ritabrata Banerjee, opposed party chief Mamata Banerjee’s decision to appoint Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of the Opposition.
