After days of insisting that she would not resign despite the BJP’s sweeping victory in West Bengal, a subtle change on Mamata Banerjee’s X profile is now
fuelling speculation that the Trinamool Congress chief may have finally acknowledged the electoral setback. Banerjee has updated her X bio to describe herself as the chief minister of West Bengal during the “15th, 16th and 17th Vidhan Sabha”, indicating her tenure in the past tense. “Founder Chairperson All India Trinamool Congress. Chief Minister of West Bengal (15th, 16th and 17th Vidhan Sabha),” the updated bio reads. Earlier, her profile described her as: “Founder Chairperson All India Trinamool Congress. Honourable Chief Minister, West Bengal”. The change comes on the same day Suvendu Adhikari took oath as Bengal’s first BJP chief minister after the party secured a landslide victory in the assembly elections. Adhikari had defeated Banerjee from the Bhabanipur seat in last month’s polls. Despite the results, Banerjee had strongly refused to step down earlier this week, alleging that the election verdict was “not a people's mandate but a conspiracy”.
“Why should I step down? We have not lost. The mandate has been looted. Where does the question of resignation arise?” she had told reporters. “The question of my resignation does not arise, as we were defeated not by a public mandate but by a conspiracy…I did not lose; I will not go to Lok Bhavan,” the 71-year-old leader said.
The BJP, which won 207 seats in the 294-member assembly and ended the TMC’s 15-year rule in the state, called Banerjee’s refusal to resign “anarchic” and against democratic traditions.
Banerjee had also alleged large-scale irregularities during counting and claimed nearly 100 seats were “looted”, accusing authorities of deliberately slowing the counting process to demoralise her party.
