TMC Kakoli Ghosh's complaint comes amid deepening faultlines within the TMC after its massive drubbing in the assembly election, with dissent and internal unease increasingly spilling into the open
TMC civil war explodes in Parliament; Kakoli Ghosh accuses Kalyan Banerjee of misogyny
After TMC's assembly election rout, internal cracks widen as Barasat MP complains to Lok Sabha Speaker, alleging repeated verbal abuse by her combative colleague
Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar has complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing party colleague Kalyan Banerjee of verbally abusing her inside Parliament and misogynistic behaviour towards women parliamentarians.
The complaint comes amid deepening faultlines within the TMC following its drubbing in the assembly election, with dissent and internal unease increasingly spilling into the open.
Formal complaint
In her letter to the Speaker, Ghosh Dastidar sought permission to register the complaint formally and demanded action against Kalyan Banerjee.
"I seek your permission to lodge a formal complaint to you for redressal against Lok Sabha Member of AITC Kalyan Banerjee, who has repeatedly verbally abused me inside the Lok Sabha. This misogyny has been against many lady members and needs to be punished," the MP from West Bengal's Barasat wrote in the letter.
Neither Banerjee nor the TMC leadership immediately reacted to the complaint.
TMC MP rebels
This comes barely a day after the four-term Barasat MP quit all organisational posts in the TMC and launched a stinging political diatribe against sections of the party leadership.
She, however, continues to be an MP of Barasat, which she won on a TMC ticket.
The faultlines within the TMC burst into the open after Ghosh Dastidar publicly flagged issues ranging from alleged corruption and the RG Kar rape-murder controversy to the growing influence of political consultancy firm I-PAC over the party machinery.
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Her resignation from party positions came a day after she attended Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's administrative review meeting in Kalyani, defying the party's instruction to abstain.
Cracks widen in TMC
Kalyan Banerjee, the four-time MP from Sreerampur and one of the party's most combative parliamentarians, has frequently courted controversy over his remarks and confrontations with political opponents as well as colleagues.
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The latest episode also comes against the backdrop of past public disagreements involving senior TMC leaders such as Mahua Moitra, Kirti Azad and Banerjee, exposing widening cracks within the party after its electoral reversal.
The TMC, however, has publicly maintained that the party remains united despite sporadic differences among leaders.
(With agency inputs)