Aaditya Thackeray slams TMC rebels as ‘timid, ungrateful’

Mumbai: Dubbing TMC lawmakers for rebelling against the party “timid”, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray has said those “ungrateful” to former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are now abandoning the ship, .

Thackeray, whose own party in Maharashtra suffered a split in 2022 following a rebellion led by Eknath Shinde, on Friday, June 12, accused the TMC rebels of failing to acknowledge what the party and Banerjee had done for them.

The West Bengal Assembly poll setback has triggered an open rebellion by a section of MLAs and MPs, many of whom have questioned party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s leadership and his growing influence over organisational affairs of the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

On Monday, June 8, a group of 20 Lok Sabha MPs led by party chief whip Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claimed to have written to Speaker Om Birla seeking recognition as a separate bloc supporting the BJP-led NDA, triggering a split in the party’s parliamentary ranks. Three Rajya Sabha MPs have quit so far, too.

The parliamentary revolt had followed an upheaval in the West Bengal Assembly last week, where 58 of the TMC’s 80 MLAs broke ranks with the party leadership and backed expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of the Opposition instead of the party’s official nominee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.

The twin rebellions plunged Mamata Banerjee’s outfit into what observers described as its gravest organisational crisis since its formation in 1998, exposing deep fault lines within a party that had dominated West Bengal’s politics for over a decade and a half.

“Those who are timid and ungrateful, who are indifferent to what was done for them by the party, Mamata Didi and party workers are abandoning the ship,” Thackeray said.

On TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee questioning Abhishek’s leadership style, and even issuing an ultimatum to party supremo Mamata Banerjee to choose between her nephew and veterans like him, Thackeray said these reflect the deteriorating political situation.

“This would not have reached this stage had we (the undivided Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray) got justice. We are hopeful that we will get justice. This is a constitutional issue,” the former Maharashtra minister said.