As the Monsoon Session of Parliament wound down on Thursday, one party stood out for its relentless aggression - Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC). With West Bengal elections just seven months away, the Trinamool sharpened its attacks on the BJP, staged protests both inside and outside Parliament, and positioned itself as a key driver of the opposition's agenda.
Throughout the session, Trinamool MPs repeatedly entered the Well of the House, raised slogans on "vote theft", and played a role in building consensus around the opposition's Vice-Presidential candidate, Justice Sudarshan Reddy. The shift was telling - in 2022, the TMC abstained from the V-P election after accusing the Congress and Left of sidelining it by naming Margaret Alva. This time, Banerjee's party ensured a non-political face with a record of public work was chosen, signalling its determination to shape the opposition agenda. Party sources said the Trinamool also played a role in making Justice Reddy an "opposition candidate" as opposed to an INDIA bloc one, with parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) - not part of the bloc - also supporting his candidature.
The party's protests were also uniquely cultural - MPs carried banners and sang songs, and on Thursday, for the second day in a row, entered the Well of the House after a morning demonstration where they recited works of Rabindranath Tagore, Jibanananda Das, and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Trinamool leaders feel they were "more aggressive than others" in taking on the BJP - and they point to electoral results to back that claim, having cut the BJP's Lok Sabha tally in Bengal from 18 in 2019 to 12 in 2024. Mamata Banerjee is now eyeing a fourth consecutive term in 2025.
"It's very clear today who is leading the opposition," Trinamool's Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien said. "Today, we congratulated each of our MPs for fighting this battle single-handedly. The plan was drawn up at the INDIA meeting at 10.30, and we stuck to it."
Another MP added that while some opposition parties "limited themselves to tearing bills", it was largely the Trinamool that consistently disrupted proceedings from the Well and prevented the House from functioning to push the opposition's agenda.
The aggressive avatar of the Trinamool also coincides with the recent elevation of the party's general secretary Abhishek Banerjee as leader of the Lok Sabha.
The party further escalated its confrontation with the BJP by demanding an FIR against former Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, accusing him of manipulating voter rolls in Bengal to benefit the ruling party. Calling the deletions and transfers of names a "criminal conspiracy against democracy," Trinamool leaders vowed to pursue legal and parliamentary action. They also claimed it was Ms Banerjee herself who first raised the issue of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) back in January and pushed for street-level agitation.
"No one spoke about SIR before Mamata Banerjee spoke about it on January 27. We kept writing letters. Some parties did effective press conferences later, but we initiated it," Mr O'Brien said.
The confrontations escalated further when the Trinamool accused Lok Sabha marshals of manhandling its MP Abu Taher during protests against Union Home Minister Amit Shah's constitutional amendment bill - which proposes giving governors powers to sack chief ministers and ministers held in custody for 30 days. MPs Mahua Moitra, Mitali Bagh, and Shatabdi Ray also wrote to Speaker Om Birla with separate complaints. "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Mr Shah are scared to run Parliament. They didn't want the House to function. The last time a 267 notice was accepted was in 2016. Every day we went to the Well - it is our right. If colleagues in the INDIA bloc want to stay seated, I respect that, but we will not do that," Mr O'Brien said.
The Trinamool has decided not to nominate MPs to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Mr Shah's bill, dismissing it as a "political weapon, not a bill". "It can never be passed; they don't even have half the numbers. We don't want to waste our MPs' time," a party MP said.
With its mix of cultural protest, parliamentary disruption, and electoral positioning, the Trinamool is leaving little doubt that it wants to lead the opposition's charge against the BJP - both in Delhi and in Bengal. Whether it succeeds, given the Congress's own push for primacy, remains to be seen.
