TMC MP Dastidar quits post, accuses I-PAC of mistreating workers

TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar resigned as Barasat district president, blaming I-PAC's 'poor treatment' of party workers and flawed methods for the party's loss of five assembly seats in her constituency during the 2026 West Bengal polls.

TMC MP blames I-PAC for poll performance

Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who quit as the party's Barasat district president post, accused the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) of treating party workers "poorly" in the run up to the 2026 West Bengal assembly polls and claimed that political consultancy firm was not "directly under the control" of Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee.

The TMC leader said, "They (I-PAC) had absolutely no manners of working; they spoke very rudely. These workers of ours, they aren't servants. We don't pay them a salary; they work out of love for Mamata didi and love for the party. They treated people poorly, and their arrogance grew to such an extent that they eventually began treating us badly as well. They seemed to think they were at a higher authority than even the Prime Minister. I don't believe I-PAC was directly under her (Mamata Banerjee's) control, because I-PAC is a distinct entity."

She attributed TMC's loss of five of the seven Assembly seats in the limits of Barasat Parliamentary constituency to the "cumulative effect" of anti-incumbency and Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. "In the 2026 elections, the responsibility for managing the campaign lay with an external agency--I-PAC. They lacked the experience of fighting elections, unlike us, who have contested several elections. Their general working methodology was flawed, and they behaved rudely toward our party workers. In certain areas, there was a palpable sense of discontent among the voters, an issue of anti-incumbency directed at our own government and also the SIR, where the names of hundreds of thousands of voters were arbitrarily struck. It was the cumulative effect of all these elements that led to this outcome," she said.

Resignation on 'moral grounds'

Dastidar said that she resigned from the post on "moral grounds". "When someone serves as the President or Chairperson of an organisation, the primary responsibility for its functioning and outcomes usually rests upon them. I fail to live up to this responsibility--specifically, we lose five out of the seven assembly segments; that is precisely why, acting on moral grounds, I stepped down from the post," the TMC MP told ANI.

Of the seven Assembly seats in the Barasat Lok Sabha constituency, TMC won only two seats while the BJP swept five. TMC's Sabyasachi Dutta lost to the BJP's Sankar Chatterjee on the Barasat Assembly seat. TMC was restricted to 80 seats in the 2026 polls, ending Mamata Banerjee's 15-year rule.

Sougata Roy calls move 'unethical'

Meanwhile, Trinamool MP Sougata Roy claimed that Dastidar quit the post as she was removed from the post of Chief Whip of the TMC parliamentary party. Roy called her step "unethical."

Sougata Roy said, "She has not quit the post. Information is all wrong. Kakoli Ghosh was president of the Barasat district TMC. She resigned from that. She had a grievance because she was removed from the post of Chief Whip of the TMC parliamentary party. This is not ethical in the sense that when the party is in difficulty, one should not take steps that will harm the party. She will have to explain to people." (ANI)

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