THE BANERJEES IN A BALANCE

Mamata's old guard and Abhishek's reformist bloc strike a deal on who mans the districts to gear up for the uphill task of winning 2026 state polls

- By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

A LIST OF DISTRICT presidents and suchlike may seem like a fairly ho-hum HR matter for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a party that has grassroots' right there in its name. But this new roster was expected soon after the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The one year of no-show was marked by visible strain between West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and nephew Abhishek Banerjee. A "balanced" reset is what they're calling it—a truce between Mamata's old guard and Abhishek's 'reformist' bloc.

It arrives at a politically delicate juncture. The 2026 assembly polls loom ever closer, and a long-pending organisational reshuffle would seem basic to prepping up for combat. That aspect of urgency has acquired a keener edge than one would have presumed for a party that had a handsome score of 29 out of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats last summer, with a 2 per cent vote swing in its favour, and ramped that up to a knockout-worthy 14 per cent-plus in November bypolls, where it swept all six seats in play, even plucking two out of the BJP’s kitty.