Mamata Banerjee, the founder and supremo of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), is facing intense scrutiny over her party's trajectory in West Bengal — from its historic ousting of the Left Front government to its current political unravelling marked by corruption scandals, internal factionalism, and a bruising defeat in the state Assembly election.

A Party Built on One Goal

The TMC's singular mission for years was to end the Left Front's three-decade stranglehold over West Bengal. When that goal was achieved, the party appeared poised to deliver on promises of good governance and effective administration. Instead, critics argue, what followed was a superficial makeover — symbolised by the government's signature white-and-blue colour scheme — that failed to address deeper structural failures in governance.

Welfare schemes and direct benefit programmes, initially welcomed by voters, reportedly became instruments of political patronage rather than genuine social delivery. As expectations grew, the gap between promise and performance widened.

The 'Cut Money' Crisis and Corruption Allegations

The rot became impossible to ignore when Mamata Banerjee herself publicly confronted it. In June 2019, while addressing civic body leaders in Kolkata, she acknowledged that some local leaders were extorting a so-called 'cut money' — a percentage siphoned from government welfare payments — from ordinary beneficiaries. She cited a particularly egregious example: leaders allegedly taking a cut of ₹200 from the ₹2,000 her government allocated to low-income families to cover cremation costs for deceased relatives.

The public admission, while seen by some as a show of accountability, was widely interpreted as damage control ahead of the 2020 civic polls and 2021 Assembly elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had been raising the issue during campaigns for years, but the scale of the acknowledgement caught even the party faithful off guard.

Compounding the crisis were allegations of cross-border smuggling — from cattle to coal — across the Bangladesh border, followed by large-scale bribery in teacher recruitment. Reports pointed to the involvement of several senior TMC leaders in these alleged misdeeds, deepening the perception of systemic institutional failure.

The Mamata-Abhishek Fault Line

Internal divisions, long simmering beneath the surface, eventually fractured into open factionalism. Two camps emerged: one loyal to Mamata Banerjee and another rallying around her nephew and party General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee. Posters and slogans positioning Abhishek as the organisational 'general' appeared across the state.

Before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, reports indicated that Abhishek Banerjee pushed to sideline veteran leaders — including Sougata Ray, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, and Kalyan Banerjee — who had been with Mamata since the party's early days or even before. Mamata, according to reports, resisted this move and reportedly put her foot down to protect her old guard.

Much of Abhishek's strategic direction was attributed to the influence of a professional political consultancy associated with Prashant Kishor, operating through the organisation IPAC. Senior district and state leaders complained that IPAC's operatives — seen as 'outsiders' to West Bengal's political culture — were given disproportionate influence over the party's electoral strategy. Despite the discontent, Abhishek reportedly prevailed, and dissenting voices were reduced to murmurs.

A Defeated Leader in the Dock

Mamata Banerjee, now 71, may have been preparing to transition leadership to her nephew, according to political observers. But the pace and scale of the party's decline appear to have outrun any such managed succession plan. The TMC's disastrous performance in the most recent Assembly election has brought the internal contradictions into sharp relief.

Mamata herself has acknowledged, by her own admission, that her years in governance drew her focus away from party organisation — a coordination failure that may have proved decisive. A perception has taken hold that she could promise, but struggled to deliver. Critics argue that the leader who built the party must now answer for its current state.

Whether the TMC can recover its footing — or whether it faces a deeper structural decline — will likely depend on how Banerjee resolves the succession question and whether she can rebuild trust with a voter base that feels let down.