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Mamata Banerjee no longer Bengal chief minister, governor dissolves assembly
BJP leaders have indicated that the new government was likely to be sworn in on at Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Parade Grounds May 9.
West Bengal governor RN Ravi on Thursday dissolved the state assembly at the end of its five-year term. The move comes days after Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee declared that she would not follow the convention of going to the governor to hand over her resignation as the state’s chief minister despite losing a landslide election to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In the absence of her formal resignation, there was no opportunity for the governor to ask her to continue as the caretaker chief minister till her successor took oath.
“In exercise of the powers conferred upon the Governor under sub-clause (b) of clause 2 of Article 174 of the Constitution of India, RN Ravi Governor of West Bengal has issued an order dissolving the West Bengal Legislative Assembly with effect from May 7, 2026,” a statement by the governor’s office in Kolkata said.
BJP leaders have indicated that the new government was likely to be sworn in on at Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Parade Grounds May 9, two days after the term of the outgoing assembly expires and coinciding with the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore
A senior government official said the governor would be the state’s executive head in the interim period.
The BJP’s stunning victory – which saw the BJP craft an unprecedented consolidation of Hindu voters, make inroads into Banerjee’s south Bengal bastion, capitalise on resentment against grassroots corruption, and bank on 15 years of anti-incumbency – saw Banerjee lose her own seat of Bhabanipur to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by 15,000 votes.
A day after the BJP won 207 seats against the TMC’s 80, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of India and the central police forces of helping the BJP.
“If we have not lost the election, then why should I go to Raj Bhavan? I am not taking oath. And, why do I have to resign? We didn’t lose. It is their forceful attempt to defeat us. Our fight was not against BIP but against the EC,” she told reporters on Tuesday at her residence.
On Wednesday, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said her refusal to resign was a "language of protest" in a democracy.
"Mamata didi not tendering her resignation is a protest language. It is symbolic. This is a protest against the way the Election Commission allegedly manipulated the results in more than 100 constituencies during counting," Ghosh told reporters on Wednesday.
