Kolkata: Mamata Banerjee is officially now a “former Chief Minister” of West Bengal, following Governor R.N. Ravi’s announcement of the dissolution of the state Legislative Assembly, which also means the automatic end of the previous state Cabinet led by her.
The Governor announced this on Thursday evening. However, in her official social media handles (both X and Facebook), she continues to retain the ‘Chief Minister of West Bengal’ information.
A click on the about section of both her X and Facebook handles shows her identity as — ‘Founder Chairperson All India Trinamool Congress. Honourable Chief Minister, West Bengal’.
The claims about her identity in the social media handles are in line with what she said at a press conference on May 5, that is, the day after the results of the West Bengal Assembly Election, 2026, which marked a landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and also the end of the 15-year Trinamool Congress regime in the state.
In that press conference, Mamata Banerjee clearly said she would not follow the tradition of submitting her resignation to the Governor since she felt that the official results were not a reflection of the actual public mandate, thus making it clear she was not accepting either the Trinamool Congress’ defeat in the entire West Bengal or her personal defeat at the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency.
At Bhabanipur, she was defeated by Suvendu Adhikari, the then outgoing and now former Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, by over 15,000 votes.
Her present actions resurrect the memories of the actions by her predecessor and the last Chief Minister of the CPI(M)-led Left Front regime in West Bengal, Late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, on May 13, 2011, when the results of the West Bengal Assembly elections 2011 were announced.
At around 1 a.m. on that day, although the final results were not officially announced, the trend was clear that the 34-year Left Front regime was ending and the Trinamool Congress regime was beginning. Bhattacharjee went to Raj Bhavan, met the then-governor M.K. Narayanan, and submitted his resignation.
Bhattacharjee went to Raj Bhavan in the state-provided bulletproof vehicle that he was entitled to as the then Chief Minister of West Bengal. However, after submitting his resignation, instead of using the car he was entitled to as the Chief Minister, he got into another car provided by his party, CPI(M) and left the scene.
Before leaving, he thanked his escorting security personnel for being with him for a long time and then requested them not to remain engaged in his security duty further.
BJP’s former state president in West Bengal and the Union Minister of State, Sukanta Majumdar, also acknowledged the gesture of Bhattacharjee on that day while comparing the same with the present actions of Mamata Banerjee.
“There cannot be any comparison between Late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee. Despite differences in political ideology, I have no hesitation in accepting and admitting the fact that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was a man of impeccable honesty and integrity. He was never a power-hungry person, which he proved till the end of his life,” Majumdar said.
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