Do not succumb to pressure and join BJP, Mamata tells Trinamool loyalists

Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Friday (August 28, 2026) asked her loyalists not to succumb to political pressure and join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While speaking at the foundation day of her party’s student wing, the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), Ms. Banerjee assured them their party would soon return to power and write a new political history.

“I tell my colleagues to remain strong and fearless. If necessary, spend a month eating jail food, but do not surrender politically,” Ms. Banerjee said. She told the youth supporters of the party that the Trinamool was the only shelter for them. The youth and the women should take the fight forward, she added.

The former Chief Minister said that people like her, who rose to power from student politics, could not be intimidated.

Trinamool’s Beleghata MLA Kunal Ghosh raised slogans from the stage in support of the party supremo. “Aay gaddar dekha ja Mamata Banerjee-er khomota [come traitor, see the power of Mamata Banerjee],” he said.

Mr. Ghosh said many joined the opposite side either to save their money or under threat.

Diamond Harbour MP Kalyan Banerjee challenged Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari to try and see if he could stop Ms. Banerjee. “No matter how many times you send us to jail. We will always come out and say, ‘Long live Trinamool Congress,’” he said.

Mr. Banerjee said no matter what the challenges, the young students must keep fighting because they were the way forward, even if the BJP tried to create pressure and jail people.

The Trinamool general secretary said the people who came to take power in Bengal were now shaking due to the power of student movements. “The election results were declared on the 4th, and by the 15th, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) had been formed. That is Bengal’s curse,” Mr. Abhishek Banerjee added.

Attack on defectors

Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee said he would ensure that the 20 MPs in Parliament who left the Trinamool and offered support to the NDA government through the NCPI were removed from their positions.

He said Mr. Adhikari was a disgrace to West Bengal’s politics and should not be spared, while claiming that the latter’s days as the Chief Minister were numbered.

Meanwhile, Mr Abhishek Banerjee urged the TMC chairperson not to let the traitors ever return to the Trinamool. “Not a single one of these traitors will be allowed back in the party. People who grew up under the Trinamool have now gone to the other side to save themselves; we will not spare them,” he said.