Mamata Banerjee Declares, “I Won’t Resign”: Trinamool Didn’t Lose the Bengal Election

Mamata Banerjee, the head of the Trinamool Congress and chief minister of Bengal, lost the state to the BJP yesterday after serving three terms in a row. She has refused to submit her resignation, creating an unprecedented issue that will probably wind up on Governor RN Ravi’s desk.

Banerjee – who is at her fighting best when cornered and just yesterday, promised to fight like a “tiger cub” — argued today that she has not lost the election and the mandate the BJP got was the result of “loot”.  “I have not lost, so I will not go to Raj Bhavan. I will not tender resignation,” she told reporters at a press conference this evening. 

Banerjee’s action may end President’s Rule in the state, but according to Election Commission sources, this is not necessary if the winning party makes a claim and is invited by the governor to form a government before the assembly’s term expires.

The BJP may have just two days left before the West Bengal assembly’s term expires on May 7.As the counting in her assembly constituency Bhabanipur came to a close yesterday, it became evident that she had lost to her aide-turned-BJP-face. Banerjee’s Suvendu Adhikari said that 100 seats in this election were stolen. It was “loot, loot, loot,” she said. 

She accused the Election Commission and the government of collusion today. accusing the poll body of engaging in “nasty games” and stating that the commission, not the BJP, is the true rival of the Trinamool. Accusing the government of “direct interference”, she said, “This is how they stole elections from Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar and now Bengal”.

“This is not how democracy works.  When the judiciary is not there, when Election Commission is biased and the government wants one-party rule, a wrong message is going to the world,” she said.  The 71-year-old also said she was assaulted at a polling station and that was why she could not meet the media yesterday. “I was kicked in the belly and back. The CCTV was off. I was pushed out of the counting station. As a woman I was misbehaved with,” she said.

“If Central forces can behave like this. I have nothing to say. I have seen former BJP governments at the Centre. But nothing like this,” she said.

Banerjee stated that the leaders of the INDIA bloc had contacted her and that she has their support, but she declined to disclose her party’s plan for the upcoming days. However, she stated that her party will establish a fact-finding team consisting of five MPs and others to visit locations where the Trinamool is being targeted and party offices that have been vandalized.

Earlier today, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, whose party, despite being under the same umbrella at the Centre is Trinamool’s arch-rival in the state, accused the BJP of “vote theft” in Bengal. 

In a post on X, he said, “Some in the Congress, and others, are gloating about TMC’s loss. They need to understand this clearly – the theft of Assam and Bengal’s mandate is a big step forward by the BJP in its mission to destroy Indian democracy. Put petty politics aside. This is not about one party or another. This is about India”.

Yesterday too, Gandhi had backed Mamata Banerjee’s claims of loot of 100 seats. 

“Assam and Bengal are clear cases of the election being stolen by the BJP with the support of the EC. We agree with Mamata ji. More than 100 seats were stolen in Bengal. We have seen this playbook before: Madhya Pradesh. Haryana. Maharashtra. Lok Sabha 2024 etc,” his post read.