Had Mamata Banerjee returned to power for a fourth term in Bengal, Ritabrata Banerjee, the first-time MLA from Howrah's Uluberia Purba, would have been among the frontrunners for a ministerial berth.
On Wednesday, two days after the Trinamool expelled him along with fellow rookie MLA Sandipan Saha for "anti-party activities", at least 58 "rebel" Trinamool MLAs out of the party’s total 80, claiming to be the "real" Trinamool legislature party, elected Ritabrata Banerjee as their leader in the Assembly and rejected the TMC’s official nominee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.
The nature of this rebellion is alien to Mamata since she floated the Trinamool rebelling against the Congress high command some 29 years ago. Those who dared to oppose Mamata in these 29 years either quit politics or fell in line.
"We are the real, principal Opposition here," Ritabrata said addressing a news conference where he also made a public request to Mamata to be the chief adviser to the legislature party on Wednesday evening.
Overnight, the 46-year-old turned into Bengal's Eknath Shinde, not to split the ruling party, but the main opposition party.
In Maharashtra, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Shiv Sena rebel-leader Eknath Shinde and the late Ajit Pawar of the NCP and allotted the party symbols to them. Mamata is unlikely to give up without a fight when the battle for the symbol happens.
The claim on who is the real Trinamool and who isn't will not be settled in a matter of days.
The "official" Trinamool has expectedly rejected the choice made by the rebels. Within the Assembly, the party stands divided. How long it will remain outside the Assembly is anybody's guess.
Many in the Trinamool and CPM feel that in Ritabrata Banerjee, the BJP has perfected a template of keeping an opposition in the state, but not an alternative.
On Monday, the Trinamool Congress expelled Ritabrata and Sandipan Saha for "anti-party activities."
Such charges are not new for the Uluberia Purba MLA. Exactly nine years ago, his former party, the CPM, suspended him on June 2 and three months later expelled him citing "anti-party activities.”
"I decided to bell the cat and I did it," Ritabrata, then a CPM Rajya Sabha MP, had told The Telegraph after his expulsion in September 2017 from the party that he was associated with for over two decades.
On Monday, Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari made public that the probe into the signature “scandal” was initiated on the basis of a letter submitted by Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha.
"Two Trinamool MLAs – Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha – wrote a letter to the Speaker alleging the signatures of 14 MLAs in the resolution that proposed Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the leader of Opposition were forged," Adhikari said, adding that the CID was probing the case.
A probe that brought a CID team to the doors of Trinamool's undisputed number two, Abhishek Banerjee.
Talking to ABP Ananda, Ritabrata repeated what he had said nine years ago: "We complained in writing [to Assembly Speaker Rathindranath Bose]. Someone had to bell the cat."
A ‘young star’
Many of his former comrades in the CPM blame Ritabrata for the violence unleashed on party cadres and offices across Bengal following an attack on Bengal’s former finance minister Amit Mitra during Mamata Banerjee's first term as chief minister.
Ritabrata was arrested by Delhi police for it.
On April 9, 2013, Mitra was assaulted on the way to a meeting at the erstwhile Planning Commission.
In those days, in the eyes of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Sitaram Yechury, Ritabrata could do no wrong. Sources said a section of the CPM wanted him out in 2013, but there was no formal move.
A year later, at age 34, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha on a CPM ticket. Former chief minister Bhattacharjee, then leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra played a key role in his elevation.
Three years later Mishra would announce Ritabrata’s expulsion from the party.
By the time he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, Ritabrata was a familiar face in the national capital as the all-India general secretary of the CPM's students wing, the SFI.
"It was always a challenge for the party to find a student leader keen to go to Delhi and could also speak English and to some extent Hindi reasonably well, if not fluently. He ticked those boxes," said a CPM leader who has been with the party as a student leader.
"He was already heading the city unit of the students' wing. A good speaker, he had endeared himself to the top leadership of the party."
The former CPM minister Gautam Deb was instrumental in Ritabrata moving to Delhi. Deb apart from being a minister in the Left Front government also monitored the students' wing of the party.
"He has this ability to get close to the top leaders of a party, stay close to the powers that be. Sycophancy is the word that comes to mind. He was close to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. He became close to Mamata Banerjee. And now he seems close to the new chief minister as well," said a former CPM leader who has known Ritabrata since his days as a student leader in Calcutta's Ashutosh College.
During his years in the CPM, during different times, Ritabrata grew close to Rabin Deb, the late Shyamal Chakraborty, Mishra, Mainul Hasan and the late Sitaram Yechury.
"Yechury tried to keep him in the party. I had a long discussion with him," a Rajya Sabha MP of an INDIA bloc ally told The Telegraph Online. "Ritabrata grew close to me when he first became an MP. Then he was expelled. Some years later I saw him in the Rajya Sabha again sitting with the Trinamool MPs. I was a little surprised."
One of the reasons why Ritabrata Banerjee caught the eye of the likes of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was his love for literature.
A voracious reader, Ritabrata makes it a point to gift books on special occasions like Poila Baisakh, the first day of the Bengali new year.
Of cats and bells
For more than three months between June and September in 2017, a three-member inquiry commission set up by the CPM probed allegations of misconduct against Ritabrata Banerjee; some of the complaints were made by women.
Within 36 hours of Ritabrata Banerjee's interview airing on ABP Ananda, the CPM state committee recommended his expulsion. Three days later the politburo gave its seal of approval. In the interview, Banerjee spoke against Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Mohammad Salim, the present CPM state secretary, who was heading the inquiry commission against Ritabrata.
"I knew that it [expulsion] was coming. I said nothing against the party. My voice was raised against a particular coterie, comprising the likes of Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, Mohammad Salim," Ritabrata Banerjee had told The Telegraph after his expulsion from CPM.
He could not have missed the expulsion from the Trinamool this time.
Unlike the CPM which does things in a bureaucratic fashion, in the Trinamool such decisions are taken in seconds.
After joining the Trinamool, Ritabrata was given charge of the party's trade union wing. In 2024, he replaced former bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar in the Upper House of Parliament.
The decision to send him to the Rajya Sabha in 2024 and field him in the Bengal polls from a rural seat in 2026 were taken equally abruptly. As abrupt as his fallout with the Trinamool leadership has been.
Ritabrata has said he was not allowed to speak on the floor of the House and for 15-odd months of his tenure remained a backbencher.
Over the last few days in his public utterances, the Uluberia MLA has trained his guns on Abhishek Banerjee and the political consultancy firm I-PAC which till just before the Assembly elections held in April was managing the Trinamool poll strategy and campaigns, among other tasks.
He has spoken against the "corporatisation of a grassroots party", dynasty and corruption of a section of the party leaders.
As a Trinamool frontal organisational head and later MP, it is unlikely that Ritabrata Banerjee was unaware of the long-pressing charges of corruption against a section of the Trinamool leaders, elected representatives and the party's rank and file.
Why did he wait this long to speak out on an issue that has been in Bengal's public discourse for over a decade? Would he have raised these questions had the Trinamool won a fourth term?
Ritabrata Banerjee did not respond to these questions sent via WhatsApp despite repeated calls through Wednesday.
Since its inception the Trinamool Congress encouraged defections and while in power for the last 15 years ensured the anti-defection law remains toothless.
Today the Trinamool in sheer numbers has faced its biggest rebellion, an act of defiance that puts a question mark on the future of the party. And the party cannot even look towards the anti-defection law for redress.
The 20-odd MLAs from the Trinamool who did not sign the letter of support for Ritabrata Banerjee have been pushed to a minority by an expelled first-time MLA.
Ritabrata Banerjee, who once swore by the hammer and sickle, is today aspiring to be the custodian of the twin flower. Question is, are there any more cats left for him to bell?