Senior Supreme Court advocate Mahesh Jethmalani has delivered a sharp, public rebuke to outgoing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her refusal to step down despite the Trinamool Congress’s crushing defeat in the 2026 Assembly elections. Speaking to NDTV and quoted in Moneycontrol’s coverage, Jethmalani branded her stance “unconstitutional” and a “challenge to democracy,” arguing that the Governor must now unseat her in what he described as a “dismissal‑in‑disgrace” scenario.
Mamata, who has already lost her own Bhabanipur seat, has insisted she did not lose the election, alleged that over 100 seats were “stolen” by the BJP–Election Commission “combine,” and declared, “I will not resign, I will not go to the Raj Bhavan.” Jethmalani dismissed this as political posturing, saying a Chief Minister who has objectively lost the mandate must either resign or be formally dismissed, because the office exists “at the pleasure of the Governor” and the five‑year term has effectively ended.
The lawyer went further, calling Banerjee a “recalcitrant” Head of Government who is clinging to office “like a lemming” to the chair, and suggested that if she refuses to quit voluntarily, the only constitutional option is for the Governor to summarily dismiss her. He warned that the longer Mamata remains, the more she would be seen as a “trespasser” in the office, and compared the situation to a “challenge to the very foundations of representative democracy.”
Jethmalani also linked her behaviour to broader concerns about governance in Bengal, describing the state under her rule as marked by “fascist, intolerant and totalitarian” tendencies, and downplayed the legal weight of her claims about 100 seats having been “stolen,” saying such allegations had to be tested in election petitions, not via a public threat to hold the post indefinitely.
With the BJP‑led alliance set to take over the state, Jethmalani’s comments have sharpened the legal‑and‑constitutional debate around the transfer of power, framing Mamata’s refusal to resign not as a political gambit but as a possible constitutional crisis that ultimately puts the Governor’s office at the centre of the next move.
