A Trinamool Congress wall graffiti from 2021 in Kolkata says in Bengali: “Jotoi naro kolkathi, Nabanne pher hawai choti” (conspire however much you can, the slippers will return to Nabanna, the state secretariat).
TMC Chief Mamata Banerjee is known for always wearing flip-flops, which is seen as a mark of her spartan lifestyle.
In one of the most remarkable political developments in recent decades, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), one of the major forces in the opposition INDIA bloc, collapsed in just about a month after it lost the West Bengal legislative election to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Twenty TMC parliamentarians have aligned with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), helping the Modi government gain numbers at a time when they are desperately seeking a two-thirds majority in the parliament.
A two-thirds majority allows for constitutional amendments, which the BJP wants to carry out on several contentious issues like redrawing parliamentary constituency boundaries and simultaneous elections for parliament, state assemblies, and local self-governments.
While the NDA has inched closer to a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, the TMC rebels’ support brings their strength to 313 in the lower house, the Lok Sabha.
