Overview
- On Wednesday the West Bengal Assembly speaker accepted a letter from a dissident bloc and recognised expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of the Opposition after the group submitted its endorsement to his office.
- The rebel camp says roughly 58–60 of the party's 80 MLAs back their letter, a figure they say exceeds the two‑thirds threshold of 54 needed to invoke the anti‑defection exception and retain the legislature party identity.
- The TMC central leadership countered by submitting its own communication endorsing Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay and by dissolving all party committees and frontal organisations in West Bengal as an organisational response.
- The crisis began after two MLAs complained that signatures were forged on a May 19 nomination for LoP, triggering a CID probe that led to the June 1 expulsions of Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha and to CID notices that Abhishek Banerjee has challenged in the Calcutta High Court.
- If the speaker, courts or the Election Commission uphold the dissidents' claim the episode could produce a formal split or a change of control of the TMC legislature wing, and the next steps to watch are verification of signatures, court rulings and any Election Commission or speaker rulings on party recognition.