Mamata Banerjee’s legislative fortress in the Bengal Assembly is in the process of being dismantled, packed into diplomatic briefcases, and shipped to New Delhi for the next, equally startling chapter, according to multiple sources in the rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress.
In just about a month from the May 4 election result that ended the 71-year-old politician's hegemony of 15 years in Bengal, Mamata may be staring at the rapid evaporation of her status as chairperson of the third largest party in Parliament.
Currently, Trinamool has 42 MPs across both Houses, behind only the BJP and the Congress.
Yet, having successfully split the Trinamool legislature party in Calcutta via the textbook execution of the “Eknath Shinde model”, the BJP's managers are now recalibrating their siege engines for Parliament.
This time, the blueprint is the “Raghav Chadha model”, the hyper-legalistic manoeuvre designed to weaponise parliamentary procedures, seize control of the party’s legislative identity and isolate the remaining loyalists before they even realise what is happening.
Because the BJP has tasted blood, the foremost constitutional experts at the Centre's disposal have already been consulted to ensure the entire operation is foolproof, even if the battle is dragged to the Supreme Court.
"Yes, I have received feelers. I have asked for a little time to consider all aspects of this," said a Trinamool MP on the condition of anonymity.
This is the first time the BJP is moving to finish a fierce political opponent with such military precision immediately after winning an unprecedented victory in a state. Rather than engaging in a prolonged, grinding war of attrition, Delhi’s modern-day panzer commanders are bypassing traditional defences entirely, deep-penetrating Trinamool's lines to cut off the command structure from its troops before a counteroffensive can even be drafted.
The procedure relies on raw arithmetic. To achieve a clean break without triggering immediate, messy bypolls under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, the backroom managers in Delhi require a precise, two-thirds critical mass: exactly 19 of Trinamool’s 29 Lok Sabha MPs, and nine out of its 13 Rajya Sabha members.
Multiple high-level sources within the rebel faction of Trinamool MLAs said multi-layered backchannel parleys are currently burning up the Delhi-Calcutta axis. At least nine Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs and three Rajya Sabha members have already purportedly expressed their "extreme eagerness" in negotiations.
“The Calcutta chapter was taken care of with the Shinde model. Now the Chadha model is being planned for Delhi,” said a source. “Nobody wants to be left stranded on a sinking ship."
This newspaper has learned that, in addition to the saffron-bound rebels, at least two Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs are currently trying their best to gain entry to the Congress, having initiated backchannel conversations with Rahul Gandhi’s emissaries in a desperate bid for a secular yet national life-raft.
Should these parallel operations hit their mathematical milestones, the Chadha model could well be seen in full, ruthless use as early as the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament.
Sources in the BJP camp confirmed that these decisions are not being left to regional satraps; they are being orchestrated directly from the "highest levels" in New Delhi.
"No option is completely off the table," said a saffron camp insider.
“The operational mechanics are being handled at the very top to ensure total constitutional compliance. If the remaining Trinamool loyalists choose to move court, they will find every exit route already sealed," he added.
The tactical and arguably sinister genius of the strategy lies in its absolute hygiene. Given the BJP’s repeatedly pledged public refusal to admit Trinamool defectors right away, the Shinde or Chadha models work wonderfully well. They destroy whatever remains of Mamata's Trinamool from within, using its own institutional weight to crush it, without the BJP directly having to get its hands dirty in public.
By choosing this proxy war rather than a messy public assimilation, the saffron command is ensuring that the regional giant does not fall to an external army but implodes. Mamata's Trinamool is discovering that the most lethal wounds are the ones inflicted from within.