Another jolt to Mamata: TMC's Prakash Baraik resigns as Rajya Sabha MP, 3 more likely to quit

In yet another setback to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), Prakash Chik Baraik resigned as the Rajya Sabha MP on Thursday. The development comes a day after Sushmita Dev resigned from the party. 

On Wednesday, Sushmita Dev resigned as the TMC MP from the Rajya Sabha and quit all party posts. Dev is likely to join the BJP, a speculation which gained traction after she met Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in Delhi. 

With Baraik's resignation, the TMC's bench strength in the Rajya Sabha is set to fall to 10 MPs. Further trouble awaits the Trinamool as sources told India Today that as many as 3 more TMC Rajya Sabha MPs could resign within the next week. 

Meanwhile, speculations were rife about a possible merger of the TMC with the Congress after a meeting between Mamata Banerjee and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday.

A senior TMC leader dismissed these reports, calling them "baseless".  "We have no such information. This is baseless," a senior TMC leader told PTI.

Later, Congress general secretary, communications, Jairam Ramesh, described the news reports on what supposedly went on in the meeting between former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Banerjee as "completely inaccurate". 

"The meeting was very cordial, and many personal matters were talked about, given the long relationship they have had," Ramesh said in a post on X.

Sources said that Banerjee stressed opposition unity and asserted that the INDIA alliance should work in cohesion to take on the BJP on several public issues. 

Banerjee formed the TMC in 1998 after breaking away from the Congress. The party later grew into West Bengal's dominant political force, ending the Left Front's 34-year rule in the state in 2011 and went onto rule Bengal for 15 years.

The TMC is falling like a house of cards ever since the party's drubbing in the West Bengal election last month. Last week, over two-thirds of the party's legislators — around 60 of its total 80 MLAs — broke away from the official TMC legislature party and got recognised as the principal opposition bloc in the Assembly under the leadership of expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee. 

Later, rebel MPs led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claimed support from more than 20 Lok Sabha MPs who want to break away from the Trinamool Congress.