Mamata’s decision not to quit part of her protest against Centre, EC: Raut

Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Wednesday came out in support of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s decision not to resign after her party’s defeat in the assembly elections, describing it as part of a larger “agitation” against the Centre and the Election Commission of India.

Speaking to reporters, Raut said Banerjee’s refusal to step down was a political message against what he termed the “dictatorship of the Centre” and the “partisan behaviour” of the poll body.

“Mamata Banerjee not resigning is part of her protest against the government, the Election Commission and a series of acts against democracy,” he said, adding that it remains to be seen how the agitation unfolds.

He stressed the need for Opposition unity, arguing that parties must come together to counter what he alleged was a systematic erosion of democratic institutions. “We have to unite if we want to fight the dictatorship of the Centre and the way the EC is functioning like a slave of the government,” Raut said.

The remarks come a day after Banerjee rejected the West Bengal election verdict as “engineered” and refused to step down, asserting that her party was effectively “fighting the Election Commission, not the BJP”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party swept the polls with 207 seats in the 294-member Assembly, ending the All India Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule, while the TMC was reduced to 80 seats.

Raut also reiterated his support in a Facebook post, calling Banerjee’s decision “fully justified”, and drew parallels with the 2022 Maharashtra political crisis. He recalled that during the legal battle over the Shiv Sena split, the then Chief Justice of India had observed that Uddhav Thackeray could have been reinstated as chief minister had he not resigned.

Highlighting solidarity within the Opposition, Raut said Thackeray had personally called Banerjee after the results to extend support, and that several INDIA bloc leaders had reached out to her.

“Even many within the government are not in agreement with the degradation of democracy,” he claimed, reinforcing his call for a broader Opposition front against what he described as institutional bias.

With PTI inputs