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In less than 48 hours, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) lost the 2026 West Bengal election. Chandranath Rath, an ex-Air Force serviceman and personal assistant to Suvendu Adhikari, now the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was shot dead at point-blank range on 6 May. Rath was returning home when unidentified assailants came on a bike and opened fire on him in Madhyamgram. It must be noted that it was Rath who confronted Mamata Banerjee during her late-night dramatic dharna outside Bhabhanipur counting centre on 30 April and early 1 May, when it was alleged by the TMC that strongrooms were opened in the absence of political representatives. Rath’s mother, Hasirani Rath, has held the TMC and ‘their gundagardi’ responsible for her son’s killing.
The transition of power in West Bengal has never been merely a change in government; it has been a seismic collapse of a political edifice built on the shaky foundations of populist ego and institutional decay. The ego that made Ms Banerjee say: ‘I will not resign’, in the aftermath of the 2026 election and the decay that has consistently failed in stopping the post-poll violence since 1977. You can call it a tragedy of a state and its unfortunate people that faced the so-called stagnation of the Left and a brand of charismatic authoritarianism that eventually cannibalised the very democratic values it always claimed to protect. For 15 years, the TMC rule functioned as a masterclass in the personalisation of power, where the state was the party and the party was the leader.
The rot, however, started long before the first ballot was cast in 2026. The dictatorial tendencies of the TMC were often masked by a veneer of street-fighter grit, yet they manifested in ways that directly undermined the federal and legal structure of the nation. One must look back at the unprecedented spectacle of the West Bengal Police, when on Feb 3, 2019, they physically detained CBI officers who had arrived to investigate the Saradha chit-fund scam, a massive Ponzi scheme collapse that came to light in April 2013 that defrauded over 1.7 million depositors in Eastern India. It was a moment where the rule of law was held hostage by dictatorial pride, a literal ‘arrest of the investigators’ that signalled to the world that Bengal was an island where the Indian Constitution applied only at the discretion of the Kalighat residence – that’s where Ms Banerjee resides for those who are confused. This was confirmed to me when documents and digital devices were forcibly snatched away by Ms Banerjee in 2026 from the officers of the Enforcement Directorate, while they were conducting a raid at the office of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), firm that was responsible for managing TMC’s 2026 West Bengal election strategy.
This defiance was often fueled by a rhetoric of blame that bordered on the irrational. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the nation grappled with an unprecedented crisis, Ms Banerjee chose to weaponise public health, frequently blaming the central government for lockdowns and supply shortages that were logistical necessities, rather than seeking a collaborative path to save lives. Basically, it was ‘Modi ne kiya hai’ even if someone sneezes. Remembering Arvind Kejriwal? No worries, you are not alone. In all, it was politics over pathology, a recurring theme where the ‘enemy at the gates’ (the Centre) was always a more useful narrative than ‘the crisis in the wards.’
The bigotry and moral inconsistencies of this regime were perhaps most visible in its relationship with the women of Bengal. The very ‘Maa’ in the party’s ‘Maa, Mati, Manush’ slogan. When Ms Banerjee remarked that women should not roam outside at night to avoid danger, it was more than just a regressive slip; it was a fundamental betrayal.
For a woman leader to echo the tropes of victim-blaming is the height of hypocrisy, exposing a deep-seated bigotry that prioritises social control over the actual safety and liberation of women. This moral vacuum extended to the party’s tolerance of violence. Sandeshkhali, Murshidabad Riots, Birbhum Land Grab attempt of a 200-year old Hindu Temple by the Muslim TMC Leaders and Humanyun Kabir’s warning to throw the Hindus into the Bhagirathi river, to quote some.
If you cannot win the mind of the people, fill their heart with terror. This seemed to be the only approach left of the Banerjee-led party.
Also, the current ‘liberation’ of Bengal, as many are now calling it, reveals a profound philosophical crisis and deep-rooted hate for humanity in the Indian Left. We have reached a level of political degradation where the ‘hate’ for the ruling party at the Centre has become the sole moral compass for the intellectual elites and the Left.
In their desperation to counter the BJP, the Left, which was a group that was once the victim of TMC’s brutal rise, found itself in a perverse alliance of silence, or worse, active support for Ms Banerjee. They chose to ignore the bulldozing of dissent, the institutional capture, and the rampant corruption because they were blinded by a singular animosity.
This alignment showed a disregard for basic humanity and suggested that, as long as the ‘correct enemy’ as per them is being fought, any level of regional tyranny is permissible. The irony is now playing out in the streets: as the TMC’s grip thaws, even Congress workers, long suppressed by their supposed ‘secular’ ally, are finally emerging to reclaim their own party offices. It is a desperate, late-stage realisation that they were nearly erased by the very force they were requesting us to tolerate.
And so I believe: ‘There is for sure nothing left in the Left.’
Ultimately, the Bengal story is a cautionary tale about the void left by fear. That when a party is built only on the cult of personality and the mechanics of local goons and their intimidation, it eventually becomes a husk. The TMC hasn’t just lost its seats; it lost its existence by propping up an autocracy that had no regard for the egalitarian values the party always claimed to represent. The transition we see today is not just a change in the Secretariat; it is the long-overdue cleaning of a stable that had become too toxic for its own inhabitants and 90% turnout became a reality.
As the new administration takes its oath, the tragedy of the TMC or we can say the fitting climax served by people of West Bengal, serves as a reminder that in a democracy, the mandate of the people is not a suggestion, and the ‘liberation’ of a state from a decade-plus of institutionalised ego is a necessity for the survival of the republic itself. The people of Bengal have finally decided that they would live in fresher air, devoid of any tyranny in the future, rather than continue living in the suffocating certainty of a dictatorial past. I think West Bengal has won and you’ll agree with me on this. Right?
