Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has confirmed that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will contest the 2026 assembly elections independently, ruling out any alliance with the Congress party, despite being part of the opposition INDIA bloc. The TMC leader made this statement on Monday during a meeting with her party MLAs ahead of the state’s budget session.
Mamata, who has served as the Chief Minister for three terms, emphasized that while the opposition must unite at the national level to counter the BJP, her party will not form any ties with Congress in Bengal. She pointed out that the Congress lacks a significant presence in the state and expressed confidence that TMC is strong enough to win on its own.
She further criticized the Congress for its role in the electoral losses of opposition parties in Haryana and Delhi, stating, “The Congress did not help the AAP in Delhi. In Haryana, the AAP did not help the Congress. So, the BJP won in both states. Everyone should be together. But the Congress has nothing in Bengal. I will fight alone. We alone are enough.”
This declaration comes after the BJP’s victory in Delhi, where it unseated the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the February 5 elections. With its sights now set on West Bengal, the BJP, which has never won in the state, aims to replicate its success in the 2026 elections after suffering a significant defeat to TMC in 2021.
However, Mamata’s confidence was met with skepticism by the opposition. BJP Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, a former close aide of Mamata Banerjee, dismissed her claims, saying, “Her dreams don’t always come true… We all have seen what happened to AAP in Delhi and Naveen Patnaik in Odisha. We will defeat TMC too in 2026.”
The BJP had previously made significant inroads in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but was halted in the 2021 assembly elections and the 2024 parliamentary polls. Despite the BJP’s aggressive campaigning in 2024, it managed only 12 seats in Bengal, far short of its ambitions to win over 200 seats in the state.
