The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday (June 1, 2026) expelled of its MLAs Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha, minutes after West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced that the duo had lodged a complaint alleging the forging of their signatures in a letter submitted by the TMC to the Speaker.Addressing a press conference at Nabanna, the State Secretariat, Mr. Adhikari said Mr. Ritabrata Banerjee and Mr. Saha had submitted a written complaint to the Speaker of West Bengal Assembly that their signature on a letter nominating Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly had been forged.“I thank Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari for exposing the MLAs. If they had any allegations, they should have written to party chairperson Mamata Banerjee, not the Speaker,” Trinamool MLA and party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, announcing their expulsion from the party.Many party members, including himself, Mr. Ghosh said, may have had complaints about the Trinamool and may not be in agreement with everything the party did, but that did not give them the right to approach a political opponent with a complaint.“None of these people have won independently. They have won as representatives of the TMC, using Mamata Banerjee’s face. After winning, just because we are not in government, they are doing this. If we were in power, these same people would have lobbied to become Ministers,” Mr. Ghosh, the MLA from Beleghata, said. Why did the two MLAs fight the election under the TMC’s banner if they had so many complaints about the party, he asked.While Mr. Saha is the MLA elected from the Entally constituency in Kolkata, Mr. Ritabrata Banerjee is the MLA from Uluberia Purba. This is the first time the Trinamool is cracking down on dissident leaders after the Assembly election. The letter under scrutiny, addressed to the Speaker and signed by 70 Trinamool MLAs, was written by TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on May 20.The official notices sent to the two MLAs by the party stated that they had failed to attend meetings called by the party leadership repeatedly, they had made “anti-party statements”, and hence their membership had been revoked with immediate effect. “You shall cease to hold any position, responsibility, or privilege associated with the party,” the notice said.The expulsion notice was signed by TMC vice-president, Chandrima Bhattacharya. Following the expulsion, the number of TMC MLAs in the Assembly has dropped to 78.“The complaint was lodged by the two MLAs on May 27, alleging that no resolution had been adopted on electing the Leader of the Opposition. The complainants said that their signature on the letter was manipulated,” Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said.Mr. Saha told The Hindu on Monday that he welcomed his expulsion. “I have been expelled from an immoral party for doing the moral thing. This party (the TMC) wants to work only with immoral people, there is no place for moral people here,” he said.Meanwhile, the Uluberia Purba MLA Mr. Ritabrata Banerjee said the expelled MLAs were right to file an official complaint with the Speaker of the House, a neutral entity who does not represent any party. “Everybody knows there is no space to speak in the Trinamool Congress. We may have said it; many have not been able to say this. If the TMC came to power, even we may not have been able to say this in the open,” Mr. Ritabrata Banerjee said while commenting on his expulsion.Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee said that “some people who now have a problem with the party” must also remember they had become MLAs and MPs under the TMC’s banner and symbol. “The moment we lost, you are betraying the party,” Ms. Banerjee said.It has been alleged that the names of 14 MLAs in the letter had been forged. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police has questioned several MLAs in connection with the forgery.Contrary to the impression that the CID was targeting Opposition MLAs, the police were in fact probing a case of forgery based on a complaint filed by the party’s own members, the Chief Minister said.The CID summoned Mr. Abhishek Banerjee on Monday in connection with the case, but he did not appear, citing illness.