Kolkata: June 18 was a day of political jolts for Mamata Banerjee, beleaguered chief of the Trinamool Congress. The Calcutta high court officially recognised her party’s rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of the Opposition, explicitly refusing to interfere with Speaker Rathindra Bose’s decision. Following the debacle of the 2026 assembly elections, Banerjee, along with Sandipan Saha led an internal coup, splitting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislative party and claiming the allegiance of 65 MLAs. The high court’s ruling effectively shattered the ruling camp’s efforts to install loyalist Sovandeb Chattopadhyay in the post. Ritabrata Banerjee has meanwhile challenged the old guard to a floor test to prove that the vast majority of legislators have abandoned them.This unprecedented restructuring of the legislative floor highlights a deeper shift in how the state’s adversarial politics operate. Commenting on this new dynamic, political analyst Sambit Pal notes, “The opposition space has been diluted in a fast and tactical manner. TMC used to poach MLAs from the opposition camp, but BJP has changed the whole game without even inducting the opposition MLAs into the party. I don’t see Ritabrata Banerjee and his team ever being able to hit the streets against the state government even if there is any issue that needs the opposition’s attention.”Also read: First MLAs, Now MPs: Here’s What Has Cost Mamata Banerjee Her PartyThe national treasurerHard on the heels of this judicial defeat came what looks like a stunning betrayal from within Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted inner circle, orchestrated by former sports minister Aroop Biswas. Serving as the national treasurer of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Biswas exercised absolute oversight over the party’s bank accounts, investment portfolios, and official disclosures to the Election Commission of India. Audited statements reveal the party’s declared assets total approximately Rs 1,081.78 crore, while its bank accounts and funds currently hold upwards of Rs 675 crore.Following the TMC’s historic defeat in the May 2026 assembly elections and the subsequent inner-party rebellion, Mamata Banerjee had initiated a comprehensive organisational overhaul. On June 5, 2026, Biswas was removed from his long-held post as national treasurer, and replaced by Subhasish Chakraborty. Biswas was also shifted to the role of a state general secretary, a transition viewed as a strategic dilution of his financial control amid mounting legal scrutiny.Despite this formal removal, Biswas has reportedly defied the party supremo’s directive by independently writing to banks to freeze critical TMC accounts. In a letter dated June 12, 2026, sent a week after his replacement and two days before the defecting MPs met the Speaker, Biswas wrote to the branch manager of HDFC Bank’s Central Plaza Branch in Kolkata. Continuing to claim the title of treasurer, he requested an immediate restriction of operations on AITC bank accounts. He cited a serious dispute over authority, highlighting that a substantial number of elected representatives, specifically 20 out of 28 Members of Parliament and 58 out of 60 Members of the Legislative Assembly, have “either left the Party or have openly revolted against the existing leadership”.The image of the letter sent by Aroop Biswas to the HDFC Bank branch manager.Biswas expressed apprehension that pre-signed cheques he had previously left at the party office for administrative requirements could be misused or encashed without proper authorisation by rival groups. Consequently, he requested that no transactions be permitted until the dispute is resolved by a competent authority. This dramatic move has fuelled intense speculation that Biswas is directly leveraging his position to secure an understanding with the ruling dispensation in the Union government.“It seems Aroop Biswas who is no longer an elected public representative, and is either trying to send a signal or directly negotiating with the ruling dispensation by putting Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in trouble. After the old committees were dissolved and a new treasurer has been appointed by the party, Aroop Biswas doesn’t have any authority to make the request to the bank unless TMC has complied with the formalities of this change,” observes Pal. A purported email from Lionel Messi’s teamThe catalyst for this sudden defiance is a highly damaging international scandal surrounding an event centring football superstar Lionel Messi at Kolkata’s Yuba Bharati Krirangan on December 13, 2025. After the assembly election results, event organiser Satadru Dutta lodged a formal criminal complaint against Biswas, alleging that the then-minister abused his official influence to hoard and black-market 22,000 of the 70,000 printed tickets, triggering massive stadium chaos.Argentine footballer Lionel Messi, front center, and West Bengal Sports Minister Aroop Biswas, front left, during an event as part of his ‘G.O.A.T. India Tour 2025’, at Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan (VYBK), in Kolkata, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. Uruguayan footballer Luis Suarez is also seen. Photo: PTI/File.On June 18, Dutta claimed that Messi’s own legal and advisory team sent a direct email to the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate, explicitly blaming Biswas for breaching strict security protocols, physically crowding the footballer, and forcing an early termination of the event. Speaking to The Wire, Dutta said, “This letter will help in the investigation. They have agreed to cooperate in the investigation and give me a clean chit.”Also read: How Messi’s ‘G.O.A.T’ Visit Turned into a Monumental Embarrassment for KolkataCiting an NDA, Dutta has refused to share the name of the person from Messi’s team who sent the purported mail. However, he admitted that the mail was sent at his behest on a request he made after the BJP government came to power. The Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate has not responded to The Wire’s calls or messages to confirm the existence of the mail. Meanwhile, after evading three consecutive notices by citing illness and seeking judicial protection, Biswas, whose brother Swaroop is already in custody, was interrogated by police on June 18.However, complaints of this nature, exposing deep systemic corruption, financial irregularities, and administrative muscle-flexing, have triggered a cascading wave of rebellion and defection across the TMC. The spectacle of senior leaders looking out for their own legal survival has broken the myth of party invincibility. With four former ministers arrested and a growing procession of former ministers, MLAs, and municipal councillors currently in custody or under massive federal investigation nets, a significant number of public representatives are actively distancing themselves from the leadership to avoid becoming political scapegoats. This structural collapse has fundamentally rewritten the political ecosystem of West Bengal, paving the way for a rapid realignment that favours national forces. “The public representatives are either getting arrested or resigning or hiding. This would expedite the local body elections and pave the way for BJP to dominate the political space without a strong opposition with the numbers in the legislature,” Pal explains.Ultimately, Bengal’s contemporary landscape has transformed into an arena of political incredulity, where a once-monolithic ruling juggernaut is dismantling from within, turning traditional governance into an unpredictable struggle for raw survival.