Rise of Ritabrata Banerjee: How e Left leader engineered Bengal's biggest political coup

IANS file photo What’s Ritabrata’s background? opar bangla How did he perform in Rajya Sabha? Why the break from CPI(M)? How did Ritabrata gain a foothold in TMC? Why is Ritabrata the chosen one? How did Ritabrata manage to convince the Muslim leaders? In the run-up to the West Bengal election, a video of Mamata Banerjee chastising Ritabrata Banerjee had gone viral, drawing widespread amusement. At a SIR protest meeting, Ritabrata had gone into an oratorical flourish before Mamata, in her own inimitable manner, cut him off publicly and asked him to focus on the burning issue of the day. Little did anyone know that Ritabrata, MLA from Uluberia Purba, would grow from a footnote in Bengal politics to the Leader of Opposition in a sensational palace coup that has left Bengal politics reeling. TOI spoke to leaders and pundits who have known Ritabrata for a long time to piece together his story.While few would have guessed this trajectory, many who have watched Ritabrata for a long time recall him as someone with intellect, the gift of the gab and deep knowledge of politics. Belonging to Jadavpur, a middle-class locality in South Kolkata, Ritabrata studied at South Point High School, one of the most famous schools in South Kolkata, later graduated with English Honours from Asutosh College and subsequently completed a Masters Degree in English from Calcutta University. Belonging to a family that migrated from, (erstwhile East Pakistan and current-day Bangladesh), Ritabrata grew up to be a liberal Left leader.General Secretary of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, Ashutosh Chatterjee, recalls their association from college politics days. At that time, Ritabrata was actively involved with the Students’ Federation of India, the student wing of CPI(M). Ashutosh remembers watching Bengal’s latest Leader of Opposition during various college elections, when he himself was canvassing for Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of Congress, and being impressed with Ritabrata’s sharp speeches. That Ritabrata made a mark at that time can be gauged from the fact that he became all-India general secretary of SFI and was catapulted to the Rajya Sabha from the Left in 2014 at the age of 34. For Left, which often rewards leaders after a long grind at grassroots, such elevation showed deep trust in Ritabrata’s ability.Ritabrata Banerjee’s Rajya Sabha record lives up to his persona of a scholar MP. PRS records him with 823 questions, 275 debates/interventions and 77% attendance in his two stints so far. Between 2014 and his 2017 CPI(M) expulsion, his line was recognisably mirroring the traditional Left issues regarding farmers, workers, public institutions and Centre-state neglect. After the expulsion, Parliament records show questions on farmers’ income in West Bengal, railways’ share in freight movement, recognising Hindi and Bangla as official languages at the UN, among others.After TMC nominated him to the Rajya Sabha in 2024, his interventions moved closer to Trinamool’s cultural-federal line of Bengal identity, Centre-state friction and institutional recognition for Bengal’s history.While Ritabrata Banerjee was considered a protege of former chief minister and Left veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, and some even called him the blue-eyed boy of the Left, his penchant for developing a brand of his own while remaining within a regimented party like CPI(M) did not go unnoticed. It was often at odds with communist culture.He was eventually expelled from the party after disciplinary proceedings that involved allegations of personal conduct and anti-party activity. He repeatedly had fallouts with powerful Left leader Mohammed Salim, and it was a Salim-led committee that finally signed off on his expulsion.When contacted by TOI, Salim still appeared dismissive of Ritabrata, notwithstanding his newfound fame. Salim said, “We sneezed and TMC caught the virus and now they are suffering from fever. It was RSS which had originally propped up TMC and now the party has reached its expiry date and hence the recycling process is on.”The Left leader categorically refused to wade into Ritabrata’s early days in politics, saying that for the party, once someone is out of its structure, it becomes a closed chapter. Ashutosh, on his part, remembered the time when both were on the same side and Ritabrata even campaigned for him in the 2016 Assembly elections. Ashutosh recalls that by then, the youth leader he had crossed roads with during student politics had morphed into a “flamboyant political personality”.According to many political watchers, in his ‘cooling period’ Ritabrata needed to reinvent himself. Dented by leaked lurid images and allegations of sexual exploitation, which he denied, Ritabrata needed a reboot. The trope of being the Bengali intellectual who could quote Marx at will had run its course.And he took up the difficult task of helping TMC grow where it was weakest, in the tea gardens of North Bengal, where the green fields have tradi