Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged party councillors to stay united as resignations unsettled several civic bodies run by the Trinamool Congress amid signs of strain within the party following its defeat in the Bengal assembly election.
In a bid to rally her grassroots network, the former Bengal chief minister addressed corporators from urban civic bodies at her residence and conveyed a message of resilience and organisational discipline.
According to TMC sources, Banerjee told those present at the meeting that party workers must stand together in difficult times. Those unwilling to continue with the organisation were free to take their own decisions, she said.
The meeting assumed significance against the backdrop of developments across multiple municipalities where TMC has been facing political and organisational challenges after its poll defeat.
The TMC chief also formed a five-member committee to provide legal assistance to party workers. Senior leaders, including Moloy Ghatak and Chandrima Bhattacharya, are part of the panel, party leaders said.
The meeting came a day after senior TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar resigned as president of the Barasat organisational district. The party subsequently appointed former MLA Tapas Chatterjee to the post.
But beyond organisational reshuffles, the bigger challenge appears to lie in Bengal's civic bodies, once among TMC's strongest power centres.
Across the state, municipal structures that had served as the party's local administrative backbone are showing signs of strain.
Councillors in several municipalities have resigned in groups, while many elected representatives have reportedly stopped attending offices, causing concerns over civic service delivery.
North 24-Parganas has emerged as one of the most visible flashpoints. In Halisahar, 16 of 23 councillors resigned last week. A day later, 30 of 35 councillors in Bhatpara, including municipal chairperson Reba Saha, submitted resignations, triggering speculation that administrators could soon replace elected boards.
Sources said district-level communication with civic bodies had virtually collapsed after the Assembly election defeat, leaving many local units of the TMC politically adrift.
The BJP government, meanwhile, has made it clear that activities of civic bodies run by the party, which was previously in power in the state, would face scrutiny.
It has appointed administrators in Durgapur, Howrah and at several other municipalities. More appointments are expected where boards have become dysfunctional, sources said.
In Contai municipality -- in Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's home turf -- the urban development department recently dissolved the TMC-run civic board, citing failure in civic services and appointed the local sub-divisional officer as administrator.
The development came after resignations by the vice-chairman and several councillors had left the municipality paralysed.
The tremors reached Diamond Harbour on Monday -- long projected by the TMC as a governance success story and politically associated with the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
Eight of the municipality's 16 councillors resigned together, with some alleging that elected representatives had little real authority and that the administration functioned under excessive bureaucratic and police control.
One councillor described the much-publicised "Diamond Harbour model" as a "balloon that has now deflated".
For the TMC, which still controls 125 of Bengal's 128 civic bodies, the developments represent an unfamiliar challenge.
For years, municipalities and municipal corporations formed the TMC's most durable grassroots architecture, helping sustain local patronage networks and administrative reach.
But with boards beginning to wobble and councillors walking away, the crisis now appears to be moving from isolated defections to structural stress.