The crisis within the Trinamool Congress (TMC) reached a fever pitch inside the West Bengal Assembly on Monday, June 8, 2026, when long-time Mamata Banerjee loyalist Firhad Hakim held a lengthy, highly unexpected meeting with rebel leader and newly appointed Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Ritabrata Banerjee. Coming just days after the TMC’s disastrous defeat in the 2026 state assembly elections and Hakim’s subsequent resignation as Kolkata Mayor on Friday, the high-profile rendezvous has thrown the regional political landscape into absolute overdrive.
The unfolding scene in the state house read like a highly coordinated political thriller. Hakim arrived at the Assembly as usual and was sitting in the lobby when rebel TMC MLA Sandipan Saha—a well-known Hakim protégé and a leading face of the dissident camp—approached him and escorted him directly into Ritabrata Banerjee’s chamber. The closed-door discussion lasted for a striking 70 minutes, an extraordinary length of time given the toxic climate between the party establishment and the breakaway legislative bloc. To date, Ritabrata has engineered a spectacular legislative mutiny, successfully commanding the backing of 58 out of 80 TMC MLAs to seize the LoP title away from the high command’s official nominee, Shovandeb Chattopadhyay.
Upon exiting the room, Hakim attempted to quickly downplay the explosive optics of the meeting, casually framing it as a standard social catch-up. “I had come only to have a chat. I want Trinamool to remain one,” Hakim stated, emphasizing a desperate plea for structural unity. However, Ritabrata was quick to fuel the speculative fire, noting that the two have shared a deep connection since his college days in 1998, slyly adding that while he wouldn’t disclose what was whispered behind closed doors, their dialogue was exceptionally extensive. Simultaneously, rumors are swirling that the rebel “New TMC” bloc has quietly swelled its ranks to 64 MLAs.
The timing of this secret corridor huddle could not possibly be worse for a reeling Mamata Banerjee. While her legislative wing fragments in Kolkata, the rebellion has simultaneously metastasized to New Delhi, where nearly 20 out of 28 TMC Lok Sabha MPs are reportedly preparing to break away to form their own independent group in Parliament. With the Calcutta High Court scheduled to hear a legal challenge regarding Ritabrata’s contentious LoP appointment on June 11, Hakim’s brief detour into the rebel camp sends a devastatingly clear signal: even the most trusted pillars of the old guard are no longer immune to the sweeping political realignment shaking West Bengal.
