Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Benazir Noor has quit the ruling party and rejoined the Congress, a move opposition leaders and political observers are linking to a wider contest over TMC’s Muslim support base in minority-dominated districts in West Bengal such as Malda and Murshidabad.Noor, a prominent leader from Malda and a member of the politically influential Ghani Khan Choudhury family, said she had sent her resignation to chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She later resigned from the Rajya Sabha on Monday (January 5).Speaking to reporters, Noor argued that Bengal needed a political shift.“I want change in Bengal, and I want that change to start with me. I’ll be launching a campaign soon. The BJP has been, and will continue to be, our main political opponent,” she said.Noor, 46, is a familiar figure in Malda politics and began her career with the Congress. She entered Parliament as a Congress MP in 2009, later joined TMC in 2015, and became a Rajya Sabha MP on a TMC ticket in 2021. Her Upper House term ends in April 2026. Days before her exit, TMC’s state committee had announced her name as a coordinator for three Assembly segments in Malda.TMC leaders in Malda have publicly dismissed Noor’s significance and questioned her organisational record.Speaking to The Wire, Malda TMC leader Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury said, “What work has she done while being in the party? She came to TMC holding Subhendu’s hand. She did neither organisational work nor work as a Rajya Sabha MP. Why invoke Ghani Khan’s name? Do politics in your own identity, Mausam!”The development has refocused attention on Malda, a Muslim-majority district where the TMC has struggled to establish the kind of dominance it enjoys across much of West Bengal. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the TMC failed to win either of Malda’s two parliamentary seats. BJP won Maldaha Uttar, while Congress retained a foothold in Maldaha Dakshin.Noor’s political lineage in Malda remains a factor in local alignments. Her mother Rubi Noor was a four-term Congress MLA from Sujapur, and her uncle Ghani Khan Choudhury served as a Union minister and long-time MP. Isha Khan Chaudhari, Congress MP from Malda Dakshin is her cousin. She was formally inducted into the Congress at the party headquarters in New Delhi in the presence of senior leaders like Jairam Ramesh and Ghulam Ahmad Mir.While senior leaders from both TMC and Congress showed unusual restraint and refrained from negative remarks, on the ground, the picture is starkly different.“The way TMC looted votes in 2018 was unacceptable to any civilised person. TMC is a police-dependent party, so it is difficult to work even after getting responsibilities in the party. That is why our niece is returning to her own party after six years,” said Malda district Congress leader Mustaq Alam.TMC is also grappling with political turbulence in Murshidabad after Bharatpur MLA Humayun Kabir, suspended by the party, launched a new outfit, the Janata Unnayan Party (JUP), and announced plans to contest multiple seats in the 2026 Assembly election.TMC’s electoral dominance since 2016 has been closely associated with a broad consolidation of minority votes behind the party in many regions, particularly in seats with high Muslim populations. In 2021, TMC swept all but one minority-dominated seats, but dissatisfaction over local issues and political churn has grown since then. In 2023 Panchayat and 2024 General Election, Congress and the Left have increased their vote share substantially in Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur, all three with significant Muslim populations.“To me, this incident feels like a turning point. With Mausam returning to the Congress, the Congress base will become stronger in minority-dominated districts like Malda and Murshidabad, and minority voters will have more confidence in the Congress,” Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty told The Wire.The minority-vote debate has also been sharpened by a series of contentious administrative and political developments in recent months. Mamata Banerjee’s recent high-profile temple projects are alienating her Muslim voter base by creating a perception that she is prioritising majoritarian Hindu symbolism and “soft Hindutva” to counter the BJP, thereby taking her traditional minority support for granted.This sense of abandonment is deepened as community leaders allege that the government is over-performing Hindu religiosity while neglecting urgent Muslim concerns, such as the exclusion of 37 communities from the Other Backward Class (OBC) list and the administration’s perceived weak stance on the new Waqf laws.The West Bengal government publicly opposed the Union government’s Waqf (Amendment) Bill, but later drew criticism after issuing directions to upload details of Waqf properties to the Union government’s portal, triggering renewed political sparring over whether the state had softened its stand.At the same time, sections of the Muslim community have voiced anger over the fallout of the Calcutta high Court’s May 2024 ruling that struck down OBC status/certificates granted to multiple communities since 2010, covering 77 groups, mostly Muslim. Critics say the resulting uncertainty and reclassification around OBC categories have disrupted access to reservation-linked education and public employment opportunities for many Muslim youth.“In the last Assembly election, TMC got 52% vote in Malda, which fell to 26% in the Lok Sabha, while the Congress went up from 10% to 36%. A major reason minority voters are moving away from the belief that TMC will ensure their security is the internal killings and various conflicts within TMC in that district. Because of this insecurity, people are returning to their old faith in the Congress,” Chakraborty said.With Assembly elections approaching, Noor’s switch is now being read not merely as a personal political decision, but as a test case for whether Bengal is entering a new phase of minority vote equation – one where TMC’s dominance among Muslims is no longer taken for granted.With inputs from Aparna Bhattacharya.