From R G Kar to Syndicate: Five big reasons for Mamata Banerjees undoing

As Mamata Banerjee stares at a massive defeat in West Bengal, the spotlight is on the key factors that proved to be her undoing 15 years after she ended the three-decade-long Communist rule.There are striking parallels between this poriborton (change) and the one in 2011, which brought the Trinamool Congress to power. In both, the ruling party’s leadership failed to sense the discontent on the ground and act in time. And Mamata Banerjee, like the Communists, underestimated the growing support for the Opposition. The result: a sweep.This swing was not gradual. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata’s party had bettered its tally by 7, winning 29 out of the 42 parliamentary seats in Bengal. The BJP had taken a hit, its tally going down from 18 to 12. But in the 23 months that followed, some key events are seen to have pushed the Bengal voter to the tipping point, sealing the fate of the incumbent Trinamool government: R G Kar Hospital rape-murder In August 2024, a few months after the TMC’s Lok Sabha high, a doctor was raped and murdered in Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The incident sparked massive outrage in Bengal and across the country, and thousands hit the streets in protest against the TMC government. The Mamata-led regime initially tried to downplay the incident and then tried to project it as a “political conspiracy” engineered by rival parties. Later, the CM led a rally to demand justice for the victim. But the damage was done. Her vacillation on the issue played out against allegations of a political nexus between her party and the hospital administration, which was also accused of tampering with evidence and a cover-up attempt. The government was seen as evading responsibility, and this appears to have resonated deeply with the voters. The teachers’ recruitment scam verdict Months after the R G Kar incident, the Supreme Court in April 2025 upheld the Calcutta High Court order cancelling the appointment of more than 25,000 teachers appointed by the state School Service Commission. The ruling was a huge loss of face for the Mamata government, bringing back to public memory the visuals of wads of currency notes recovered from premises linked to Partha Chatterjee, Mamata’s trusted lieutenant and Bengal’s former education minister. The Supreme Court made strong observations, saying the entire selection process was “vitiated and tainted beyond resolution”. “The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded,” the court said in its order. Mamata responded with promises to provide relief to the sacked teachers, but the corruption taint stuck. Governance failures and the ‘Syndicate’ Growing resentment against the Mamata government over its governance failures dealt a heavy blow to the TMC. Rivals played up the party’s failure to bring heavy industries and create enough jobs in the state. ‘Syndicate’, or the machinery through which TMC leaders allegedly controlled everything, starting from infrastructure contracts to the film industry, emerged as a talking point. Top BJP leaders spoke of “cut money”, the TMC leaders’ alleged “cut” in every deal. Banners featuring West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are seen during counting of votes today. PTIDivision of minority votes There is an interesting detail in today’s numbers. Both the Aam Janata Unnayan Party, led by former TMC MLA Humayun Kabir, and the Naushad Siddiqui-led Indian Secular Front won, with Kabir bagging the two constituencies he stood from. Both these parties target the minority votes in a state where their support is critical electorally. In effect, this means a breach in the minority vote bank Mamata held. Suvendu Adhikari, Mamata’s lieutenant-turned-arch rival, said during the earlier rounds of counting that while there has been a consolidation of Hindu votes in favour of the BJP, the minority base of the TMC had cracked. Lessons Didi did not learn from 2011 Mamata dislodged the Left Front from power after a 34-year rule