KOLKATA, July 4:Despite absorbing blow after blow following her party's debacle in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee remains defiant. After most of the Trinamool Congress's 80 MLAs formed a faction under Ritabrata Banerjee and its Lok Sabha MPs created a third bloc, kicking off the who's-the-real-Trinamool Congress jostling, she has dared her political opponents, saying they would have to "kill" her to "stop" her.
Banerjee called the rebels "traitors". However, in her trademark streetfighter style, she said the Trinamool's symbol would remain with the bloc loyal to her, indicating that the rebels might face a protracted legal battle. "The party symbol won't go anywhere. If you want to stop me, you need to kill me," she said.
The Trinamool Congress chief was dealt a fresh jolt on Saturday when Chandrima Bhattacharya, the party's Bengal chief and one of the few bigwigs still loyal to her, resigned. The MLA followed her colleagues into the faction spearheaded by Ritabrata Banerjee, the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, whose supporters wrested control of the party's office in Kolkata on Friday.
"Chandrima Bhattacharya has resigned today. She had already informed me of the actual situation - that she would resign - because her son had previously joined hands with an anti-Trinamool faction," she said.
The former chief minister, however, vowed she would never join the rebels, rejecting the latter's offer of an advisory role.
"That is something she is free to do, but I will not join hands with them," she said.
She claimed that the rebels had parted ways because of pressure. "But I will not bow down before the BJP, and my party will not bow down before any pressure," she added.
"To those who went to the Trinamool Congress office yesterday and locked it up, I say this: we had rented that office. It was leased to us until October 2027. An individual may leave the party, but the institution itself does not cease to exist. It is the party's property. I cannot simply take it over. No one can forcibly seize the property of 'Ma, Mati, Manush'," she said.
The former chief minister -- who uprooted the Left from power after over three decades in 2011, effectively creating a political vacuum later utilised by the BJP -- said her party's ideology was firmly against the ruling party.
"The symbol was given by me. I was the signatory for your nominations in the 2026 elections. How did you turn traitor within two months of the election? It should have some limit. You are with the BJP right now, which can't go on like this, as the Trinamool's ideology is anti-BJP," she said. �"NDTV
