Mamata Won’t Resign. What Happens Next? | Faye D'Souza

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Bengal voted. Maavanji lost both the state and her own seat as an MLA. And now in this very politically volatile situation, the transition from one chief minister to the next is under a cloud.

[00:00:13]So this is what's happening in West Bengal right now. The BJP is preparing to form its first government in Bengal after its landslide victory. Amit's apparently as home minister personally overseeing the transition. Suendu Adikari is emerging as the key chief ministerial option, the frontr runner.

[00:00:31]But before the new government takes oath, Mamta Banerji is refusing to resign and vacate that chief minister's chair. There are other members in the opposition as well who are taking her side and asking for the Supreme Court to intervene. So on the ground also at this time, Bengal is witnessing political violence. In this video, we're going to take a look at um what is happening in Bengal right now. all of the information that has come in that we've been able to verify in the last 48 hours since the election results were announced. What happens constitutionally if the chief minister refuses to step down and whether this election result changes Indian politics far beyond Bengal. All right, let's take a look at what has happened so far. Now the BJP government in West Bengal has kicked in in the sense that their formation has now started with the outgoing assembly set to be dissolved at any time. The newly elected MLAs are likely to endorse their chief ministerial pick. Home Minister Amit Sha who uh will preside over the newly elected MLAs and their choice of chief minister. We hear like I said is Suendu Ariikari. Sources are saying the party is also considering the appointment of a deputy chief minister and we'll find out soon. Sources also say the government may soon announce the dissolution of uh the existing assembly.

[00:01:50]BJP president uh in Bengal Shomik Bhachara has said the oathtaking ceremony will take place on the 9th of May um which happens to be the birth anniversary of Raindra Ajagore which is a really important day in Bengal and it's likely to happen in Kolkata's legendary Maidan. Suindu Adikari has also said that he will vacate one of the two constituencies that he contested in in the next 10 days. He has said the party's central leadership will decide which constituency he will retain.

[00:02:22]Addressing party workers and supporters in Nandi uh he said um you know not to take out victory processions immediately and wait he said for the 9th of May before you can start celebrating.

[00:02:35]Referring to attacks on BJP workers during the TMC regime. Adikari said that he will not forget those atrocities faced by them and he assured that he will take appropriate action against those people. He said and I'm quoting here, I was part of the 2011 pi which is the change and I am now part of a real change and I offer my gratitude to the people of Nandigram. He also referred to the TMC's victory, the last victory in 2011 when Mtabanerjee's party dismantled the 34 year old left regime and he offered prayers to a Hanuman statue in Nandigram and remembered BJP workers who died in political violence. He also went on to say that we will have a government in Bengal from the BJP for the next 100 years. There was one sound bite though uh that did come out and it was quoted by NDTV and also ANI uh where he said this. This is Suvindu Adikari who is the winning candidate from Babanipur and from Nandigram and remember he's most likely to be chief minister. This is what he said. He said the Hindu people of Nandigram made me win again. The entire Muslim vote went to the TMC. I will work for the Hindus of Nandigram.

[00:03:45]The TMC will be finished within 24 hours. It will be destroyed. It will be finished. And that raised a few eyebrows on social media because here is a possible chief ministerial frontr runner saying that he will only work for one half of society. Now besides Suendo Adiari there are two other possible um you know options for chief minister that that are being considered according to media reports and both of them happen to be women. Um Agnira Paul is a BJP MLA from Asenol Dakshin constituency joined the BJP in 2019 and soon became the party's Mahila Morcha chief. She organized self-defense training workshops for women in 23 districts and is described as a firebrand leader uh who entered the West Bengal assembly in 2021 after uh defeating a TMC candidate in January. She was appointed vice president of the BJP in Bengal. The other option is Rupa Ganguli who won from uh Sonarpur Dakshin assembly seat defeating Thrram's Arundati Mitra by 35,000 votes. uh she is known for playing draadi in BR Chopra's Mahabharata and she joined the BJP in 2015 and has served in Raj Sabha in one term. Now these are possible options and it seems most likely to be suendiar though. Now the election has been won and the stage is set for a new government but MTA Paraji throwing a spanner in the works by saying that she is refusing to resign and vacate the chief minister's chair alleging that this election was stolen and the election commission was being partisan and working for the BJP. She told reporters in Kolkata there is no question of her resignation. She alleged that voters were looted by force and pointed to deliberate counting delays to demoralize TMC workers. She maintained the results reflect a conspiracy and not a public rejection. Um PTA directly accused the election commission of working in the BJP's favor and framing it uh you know the framing is deliberate basically saying that you know they were this is not a fair fight and therefore she's not willing to give in. Uh notably the TMC's Maha Mitra has publicly accepted the verdict which is a departure from MDAji stand. Yesterday Maha posted on uh Twitter or X and she said the will of the people is supreme.

[00:06:08]If Bengal wanted the BJP then Bengal has got the BJP. We respect that. We fought a good fight against unimaginable odds and an uneven pitch and I am proud of my leader and my party. So on one hand MTA saying that she just refuses to accept this result and on the other hand one member of her party accepting the result. Um in response though voices from the BJP have been very clear and said hey for the Congress party Congress party was very happy with the with the Kerala results where they won. How come they're happy with the election commission in Kerala where they win but they're not happy with the election commission in Bengal where they have lost. Now let's take a look at what the legal uh experts are saying about MTA's decision.

[00:06:49]Constitutional position is not at all gray here. Um they seem legal experts are of a very clear view that Mabaraji has no option but to leave and make way for the new government because the tenure of her government and her assembly expires on the 8th of May. So um any person dissatisfied with the results can apparently file a petition within 45 days of the declaration of results. But they can be no question of the obligation of the incumbent chief minister to resign and vacate um the moment election certificates are issued by the election commission. Abhishek Manu Singhvi who is a constitutional expert, senior advocate and works very closely with the Congress party uh has basically said that maybe it is a rhetorical outburst but the legal position is very clear. She has to resign. The continuous of an incumbent chief minister after the election defeat is unfortunately constitutionally legally boiled. So there is no choice here. Ma can refuse to resign and that's the polite thing to do. But if she doesn't resign, the governor can just go ahead and dissolve the assembly and appoint the fresh assembly. And since the election certificates have been handed out by the election commission, there's nothing to be done. Now, senior advocate Rakkesh Dii was has also been quoted by the media saying that there is no question of two chief ministers at the same time. Constitutional mora mor morality and electoral mandate uh make it a must for the incumbent chief minister to resign and make way for the political party that has secured the majority. The moment a new assembly is constituted the party which won the majority in the polls will elect its representative and that person will become chief minister. If she doesn't respond, disrespective assembly shall continue for 5 years from the date appointed in the first meeting and no longer the expiration of the 5-year period shall operate as a dissolution of the assembly. So automatically on the 8th of May, Ma Banerjee's assembly as it stands will be dissolved. It will not exist anymore.

[00:08:58]And since she has not won her seat again, she's not even a member of assembly let alone chief minister.

[00:09:04]Two voices uh from the uh India block have come out in her support. Um Samajwadi parties Akile Yadav has basically said that uh this is a cautionary tale for a multi-layered election mafia that has been currently beta tested before it arrives in Uttar Pradesh in 2027.

[00:09:25]Now he's basically said that he Yadav was questioned why the pulse of democracy the counting of votes remains shrouded in a digital fog. He said the court proceedings have gone live. Why can't vote counting also go live? Why can't we all see it? And he's called on the Supreme Court to intervene and make CCTV footage of the counting centers public. Now Yadav's words obviously carry a certain personal weightage as well because he has a big election coming up in Uttar Pradesh and u he is talking about the possibility of Bengal being used as a blueprint on a larger scale in Uttar Pradesh. Um the other person who came out in support of MTA is Rahul Gandhi.

[00:10:06]Rahul Gandhi claimed that both Asam and Bengal were examples of elections being stolen with the support of the election commission and the Congress has agreed that Mamta Banerjee's concerns over the counting process are in fact concerns and the final result. His intervention is politically significant because it signals there could be a regrouping of opposition parties after the Bengal verdict. But like I said, the BJP's argument here has been very clear like how come you guys are happy when you win and you complain when you lose because there's a checker response right in Kerala the Congress won in Tamil Nadu Vijay um has won the Congress has some five seats uh in Pudhucher again the BJP and its allies have won and in West Bengal and in Assam the BJP has won.

[00:10:54]I think you can't if you want to reject the election commission, you should reject it all around and not just in the state of your choosing. Meanwhile, Bengal waits the transition. The state is also witnessing violence. Social media is full of visuals of vandalism, of arson where people are setting things on fire, people are just breaking things on the road and there's very loud celebration on the streets. Now um before the elections you'll remember that home minister Amit Sha had said security forces will be stationed in West Bengal for 2 months after the results were declared. Now Chief Election Commissioner Ganesh Kumar has directed those authorities uh to immediately arrest anyone involved in post pole violence and vandalism in West Bengal. The election commission's directive comes after two people were killed in alleged incidents of poll violence on Tuesday. Besides scores of party offices being ransacked, being uh taken over, painted, demolished in some cases uh you know ordinary shopkeepers have been attacked their uh you know their shops have been vandalized. This the election commission has introduced has in uh issued instructions to West Bengal's chief secretary to the director general of police to Kolkata's police commissioner to the uh director general of the central armed police forces the district magistrates the superintendent of police and other officials to start continuous patrolling in sensitive areas and to stop this violence completely. So this election right now is not just about who won Bengal because two days ago we were talking about this massive victory for the BJP and it really is a massive victory. It really is a complete landslide. Um it's also about what Bengal becomes next for the BJP. This is the culmination of a decade long maybe longer political pro project to crack that big opposition fortress in eastern India and make headway there for Mta Banerjee and the opposition. This is a defeat that is being framed not just as rejection by voters but as a warning for future elections. So both sides are looking at this completely differently.

[00:13:08]But in the middle of all of it are the people of Bengal watching this power transfer unfold. perhaps with their jaws slightly hitting the ground because there's street violence, there is legal battles and there's deep political polarizing and the new government will take oath in a few days. The political battle over this is just beginning.

[00:13:30]It'll be very interesting to watch a few things about what Bengal is like after this right mtabanjery in opposition which we we've seen mabanji in opposition in the center as part of the India block. We have not seen her in opposition in the state since the left was in power. So it'll be interesting to see how much fight she brings to the street um as an opposition leader in the state. For the BJP, it came in with some very interesting promises for the people of Bengal um and it will be interesting to see how those promises actually play out. See for the people of Bengal uh they want jobs, they want development, they want infrastructure, they obviously want peace on their streets. Uh they don't want violence anymore. They want to be able to get on with their lives. They want to see the kind of same kind of progress that is um apparently being witnessed in states like Gujarat. So it'll be interesting to watch the BJP team that will come into power in Bengal to see how these promises are met uh and how the expectations of the people of Bengal are met as well. Um because obviously and I must point out here that Bengal has always had a history of violence during elections. all of the analysts who spoke to us over the years, not just this election, has always said there's always a history of violence um during elections, during voting and then also during counting. I hope that at this time since the home minister moved in the kind of troops that they did during voting and counting that those troops will maintain peace on the streets right now because I think what the people of Bengal need is a peaceful transition. It's very interesting also to note that while in India we have in the past had um issues of people questioning elections but we have never had an incumbent chief minister openly refusing a political transition um in any way. So this is completely unprecedented in recent times although the law is fairly clear that on the 8th of May that assembly ceases to exist. Um and so the new one will just the new chief minister will just take oath on the 9th of May. Lots of changes here for the people of Bengal. So it' be very interesting to see it play out. Let me know what you think and uh if you live in Bengal let me know what your emotions are right now about this transition of power.