Mamata Banerjee is now a Nandigram candidate after losing her name and the Trinamool symbol.

A day after her section of the Trinamool Congress was denied the party symbol and logo, Mamata Banerjee received yet another shock when her candidate withdrew from the Nandigram seat bypoll. The leader of the Trinamool Congress, which is currently known as the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress, lost this Assembly seat to Suvendu Adhikari, her former subordinate, in 2021.

Sanchita Pradhan Dey was named the candidate by Banerjee’s Trinamool group on Sunday, following endless speculation on whether Banerjee would run in the bypoll from the constituency this time and return to the Assembly.

Dey, a teacher in Nandigram who had lost her job after 26,000 teacher appointments were canceled in connection with the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam, was chosen for a seat with such political, and even emotional, significance that it caused controversy.

According to sources, Dey met West Bengal Chief Minister and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday, the day the Election Commission declared that the Trinamool name and symbol would be frozen and that neither the Mamata Banerjee faction nor the Ritabrata Banerjee faction would be permitted to use them for the bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar. A picture of this gathering also surfaced.

Just as Mamata Banerjee was starting a news conference to criticize the Election Commission for not giving her the name and symbol and to accuse the BJP of being involved, Dey announced her withdrawal on Friday afternoon. Banerjee surprised everyone during the news conference after the deadline for nominations was Wednesday. Days after denying any such plan, she said that her party would back the Congress in Nandigram.

“The BJP did the same to Uddhav Thackeray’s party. First they broke the Shiv Sena, then the NCP, and they threatened that we should join hands with them. We refused, and that’s why they did this to the Trinamool Congress. How can they seize my party symbol of 29 years? The Election Commission’s interim order is illegal. How can they issue it after nominations were filed? These are dirty tricks. We won’t bow before the Election Commission. We will fight and bounce back,” Banerjee thundered at the press conference.

“We had decided earlier and we have given our support to the Congress in Nandigram. Rahul Gandhi called me yesterday, but we did not discuss Nandigram. We are together. We will not surrender to the BJP,” Banerjee said. “We have taken this decision (to extend support) within the party. The Congress does not know,” she revealed.

Mamata Banerjee’s support for Congress in West Bengal seemed unlikely until recently, especially given the tensions between the Trinamool Congress and Congress despite their national alliance in the INDIA bloc. The situation changed drastically after the May 4 assembly results, where the Trinamool Congress lost seats, diminishing its influence. This led to rebellions within the party, culminating in a split: the faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee became the ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ with the ‘Envelope’ symbol, while Banerjee’s faction retained control as ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’ with the ‘Football Player’ symbol.