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Day after ED summons wife and sons, TMC's Madan Mitra leaves Mamata camp for rebel faction, blames Abhishek
Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra shifted allegiance from Mamata Banerjee's camp to faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee; said “only changed my room in assembly”
A day after his wife and two sons were summoned for questioning by the central agency Enforcement Directorate in a corruption-linked case, Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra on Wednesday shifted allegiance from Mamata Banerjee's camp to the rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee. He said he had “only changed my room in assembly”.
Mitra, who served as minister under Mamata, said he wanted her nephew and the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee — who has been blamed by many rebels for the TMC split — to “step aside for six months” but quit when that demand was not accepted.
Responding to his exit, Mamata said Mitra left because of “fear” of the ED. Abhishek has become an excuse, she said.
Mitra earlier held at a press conference, seated next to Ritabrata, who has most of the 80 TMC MLAs with him and is the Leader of Opposition in the assembly at present. “I told [Abhishek], let us build the party, and then you can come back and take your seat, but he refused. He said, 'I won't leave the party.' The party is sinking; the boat has gone under. People are dying. Yet, the party decided or rather it was forced to accept that everyone else could die, but Abhishek had to be saved. It is deeply saddening,” he said.
The split in Mamata's party has only grown since the BJP unseated her and the TMC regime after 15 years in the elections results in May. With most of the MLAs and MPs having either switched to the rebel faction or technically “merged” into a small party from Tripura, the issue of who has the original TMC is being contested before the Election Commission.
Mitra further said, “The party belongs to everyone, yet it seems to have been reduced to serving only Abhishek. I earnestly request Mamata ji to come, let us view this as a marathon. We will surely cross paths along the way. Let us see which horse surges ahead. I have resigned from all the positions. Though I remain an MLA. I have left everything associated with Trinamool. That means I am no longer a Trinamool MLA in the functional sense,” Mitra said.
Mamata, Abhishek and the MPs who are still with them, such as Mahua Moitra, have alleged that the “rebellion” is because of inducements, greed, or fear of the BJP and the central agencies under PM Narendra Modi's government at the Centre.
ED case on Mitra
Madan Mitra's switch came while the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned his wife and his two sons for questioning next week in connection with a money laundering probe into the alleged municipal recruitment scam in West Bengal, a senior official told news agency PTI on Tuesday, July 14.
Mitra himself had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2014 in the Saradha chit fund case and released on bail after 629 days. He was arrested again by the CBI in May 2021 in the 2014 Narada sting operation case on bribery charges.
He denied any connection of that with his latest move.
“My family has been summoned by a federal agency. My family will go and cooperate with the agency. But that is not linked to my joining (the rebels) today,” Mitra said.
In June, the probe agency had searched seven locations in Kolkata and its adjoining areas, including the Trinamool Congress legislator's residences in Bhawanipur and Kalighat. Raids were also carried out at premises in Dakshineswar, Santoshpur, Joka and Beleghata. In October 2025, too, the CBI had searched Mitra's residence in connection with the same case and examined documents for nearly five hours.
The alleged scam pertains to irregularities in appointments to various civic bodies in West Bengal, and is being investigated separately by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), based on the main offences registered by the CBI.
