When a party is in freefall, there is a certain kind of political theater that takes place when they're trying to look like they're trying to hold it together. Leaders make clear and strong statements on discipline. Loyalists continue to look less and less credible on TV. One after another the doors open each opening making the next one seem more inevitable than the last.

This is exactly what the Trinamool Congress is faced with this Wednesday morning, after Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev quit the party and the Upper House, becoming the second TMC member to quit the Parliament's upper chamber in 48 hours. She follows the footsteps of senior TMC leader Sukhendu Sekhar Ray who had quit the Rajya Sabha and the party on June 8. Dev met the Assam Chief Minister and BJP big-wig Himanta Biswa Sarma in New Delhi on Wednesday morning; though the Chief Minister carefully worded her denials of having any new party plans, the meeting led to immediate speculations about the possible move.

Dev's political resume can be called a map of the perpetual motion of the Indian politics. She is the daughter of the late Santosh Mohan Dev who was a Union Minister in the UPA-1 government and was earlier a MP from Silchar on Congress ticket and later joined TMC in 2021. She later got a seat in the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal as a reward, consequently becoming one of the party's Northeast aspirations. Now, she's walking out and along with her her message on what happens to regional parties when the ground moves out from under them without warning.

Philosophically speaking, Dev was evasive when asked about the decision to join BJP. BJP and Congress are national parties, but I'm not in any party right now, how will I choose in which party to go? “There is nothing as opportunistic in politics,” she said and explained that she had now taken the decision as she wanted to work in Assam. The careful phrasing is to be appreciated. However, in Indian politics, it's not often a call of courtesy when you meet the chief minister of the state the morning you submit your resignation.

All this happens in the backdrop of a political disaster of epic proportions. The BJP won 206 seats of the 294 at the assembly polls in West Bengal in 2026, marking its first government at the State level after Mamata Banerjee's rule for 15 years. It's hard to explain the magnitude of that collapse. But the TMC had remained competitive as late as 2024 when they lost six seats in Lok Sabha elections to end up with 12 seats against 18 seats of BJP that year, while Trinamool Congress also moved up from 22 seats to 29 seats in the same period. Two years later, those same voters gave the party a devastating turnaround. In Bengal, something fundamental has changed and the resignations which are now going to Parliament are the reverberations.

The structural issue that faces Mamata Banerjee is not that of an election; it is existential. Twenty members of the Lok Sabha have decided to deface from the TMC and try to formally join the BJP-led NDA Parliamentary party. TMC's Lok Sabha chief whip Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, no frill man, confirmed this directly and said this group wanted a separate seating from the Speaker. There have been recent discussions among rebel MPs with Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, which have further fueled speculations of a possible union with NDA. This is the damage to the party, as it labelled itself as the backbone of the national opposition INDIA bloc, which just does not mend easily.

It is essential to take the anti-defection mathematics seriously. The anti-defection rules stipulate that if there were a formal split or merger of parties, the rebels would have to secure at least two third of the parliamentary party to avoid disqualification. The Lok Sabha has 28 MPs of TMC, with 19 having to formally break away. 20 have been declared rebels, and the count is on the verge of 20. In the Rajya Sabha, where there are 13 MPs (after the two resignations 11), nine of them would be needed for a formal split. 2 have already departed. The rebel calculus is that they will have the freedom to operate as a single parliamentary group, will be able to help the NDA but will not be fully merged in it, thus giving them the opportunity to gauge the temperature of the political and legal waters.

The Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resignation needs to be discussed separately as Ray was not just a disgruntled backbencher. He has served as TMC's chief whip in the Rajya Sabha for more than 10 years which places him at the heart of the party's legislative strategy. He said the people had handed a huge mandate to BJP for the first time in the state's history and termed it as a result of the anarchical rule of the past fifteen years in the state. Ray said his decision is not because of anyone's pressure or request but because of inner conscience, ANI reported. That's the worst form of resignation: from a man who can explain a full moral case for his departure, not just his own feeling.

What this means for West Bengal politically is of interest, especially from an economic and governance point of view, and for India as a whole. West Bengal is the fourth most populous state of India and plays important role in the industrial and agricultural economy of the country. The state is also a home to the major port infrastructure at Kolkata; it has a historically significant base of jute and textile manufacturing and a growing IT sector. Despite 15 years of TMC rule, the state's performance on the ease of doing business index was stuck at the bottom, and the industrialists regularly pointed out that the unpredictability of governance was a disincentive to investing in the state. In a research commentary, Citi, a global brokerage, said it would see "markets would hope that a strong political mandate and easier coordination with state governments will facilitate better implementation of various policy and process reforms. If that optimism can be translated into any hard figures in Bengal's GDP growth, would also be one of the most closely watched economic story lines in the next 2 or 3 years.

These developments have ramifications for the national opposition, not just in Bengal. The INDIA bloc relies on regional partners such as the TMC for leadership in debating and reviewing government bills. The NDA already enjoys an edge and this one seat loss renders it difficult for the opposition to oppose or stall new laws. But it's not just the numbers; it also has to do with the symbolism. Mamata Banerjee saw herself as the only regional leader who can challenge Modi's BJP on its home turf the street-fighter who has withstood BJP attacks in 2016, 2019 and 2021. Now that picture is forever shattered.

At the national level, there was a hope among the critics that the opposition movement along with the growing anti-incumbency against the BJP may make the party vulnerable for the next elections in 2029. But the BJP has turned the tide it has won a few state elections in 2024 and 2025 and that has paved the way for how it performed in West Bengal.

Understandably, Sushmita Dev's departure is the tale of a single politician in a sinking ship. In the bigger picture that is currently playing out it's more significant: it's a sign that the TMC as a parliamentary party might be on a road towards a controlled demolition. But the party's presence in the state is not going to be lost in the process of reorganisation; Mamata Banerjee is not a politician who leaves in silence. But its parliamentary wing which was a potent force in determining the course of national legislative debates and made Bengal the second largest parliamentary bloc for opposition has been falling apart in real time.

In Assam, however, the equation is different as Dev wants to build her political future there. With a huge majority, the BJP has been led by Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has emerged as the most dominant Northeast face of BJP, after defying Congress. A politician with Dev's background, from the Barak Valley, with the credibility of her father's decades of grassroots work and with visibility from her own stint in the Rajya Sabha, will naturally have some value for a party that is still trying to consolidate its base in the constituencies that have significant Bengali-speaking population.

It remains to be seen whether she will officially join the BJP or she will be an "independent" useful voice that gets "absorbed" in "mutually convenient terms" as only the next few weeks will tell. However, the route of movement is clear. The vessel is rolled quite high. And those who used to help operate it are now desperately working out where the closest lifeboat is moored.