Suspended Trinamool Congress spokesperson Riju Dutta has intensified the party’s post-poll turmoil in West Bengal by praising Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and openly questioning the leadership of Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee after the party’s steep Assembly defeat.Dutta’s remarks, made in Kolkata on Sunday, came a day after Adhikari was sworn in as West Bengal’s first Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Minister at the Brigade Parade Ground. The comments landed at a sensitive moment for the All India Trinamool Congress, which is trying to contain dissent after losing power in a state it governed for 15 years.
The BJP won 207 seats in the 294-member Assembly, crossing the two-thirds mark and ending Trinamool’s long hold over the state. Trinamool was reduced to 80 seats, while Mamata Banerjee suffered a personal setback in Bhabanipur, a constituency long seen as her political base. Adhikari, who also retained Nandigram, emerged as the central figure of the BJP’s victory.
Dutta described Adhikari’s political career as unmatched, citing his years as a parliamentarian, his tenure as a cabinet minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, his defection from Trinamool to the BJP, and his defeat of Banerjee in Nandigram in 2021. He said Adhikari’s political record made him the person most suited to occupy the Chief Minister’s chair in West Bengal.
The suspended leader also credited Adhikari with preventing retaliatory violence after the killing of Chandranath Rath, described as a close aide and personal assistant of the new Chief Minister, on May 6. Dutta claimed that Adhikari’s appeal for restraint had saved Trinamool workers from possible attacks at a time of heightened tension after the election results.
Trinamool moved quickly to distance itself from the remarks, saying comments made by individuals should not be treated as the party’s official position unless communicated through authorised channels. The party had suspended Dutta for six years on May 9, along with others, citing disciplinary grounds after he publicly criticised the organisation and praised BJP leaders.
Dutta’s attack went beyond praise for Adhikari. He accused the Trinamool leadership of allowing an outside political consultancy structure to acquire excessive influence over the party’s functioning. He argued that Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee should take responsibility for organisational failures that he said had weakened the party’s ground network.
The remarks have sharpened scrutiny of Trinamool’s internal command structure after its worst electoral performance since coming to power in 2011. The party had built its dominance on welfare schemes, a strong district-level machinery and Banerjee’s personal appeal, but the 2026 result showed a decisive shift in voter behaviour across several regions, including areas that had previously formed the core of its support base.
Adhikari’s rise carries particular political weight because he was once among Trinamool’s most influential organisers. His role in the Nandigram movement helped shape the anti-Left mobilisation that brought Banerjee to power. After leaving Trinamool in 2020, he became the BJP’s most prominent Bengal face and defeated Banerjee in Nandigram the following year. His 2026 victories in Nandigram and Bhabanipur turned that rivalry into the defining storyline of the state election.
The BJP has sought to frame Dutta’s remarks as proof of wider discontent within Trinamool. State BJP leaders have described Adhikari as a natural mass leader and argued that praise from a former Trinamool spokesperson reflects the political shift underway in Bengal. Trinamool, however, is treating the comments as the view of a suspended functionary with no authority to speak for the party.