Opinion | Heir Not-So-Apparent: The New Reality Of Indian Politics

Updated: Jun 16, 2026 12:39 pm IST Published On Jun 16, 2026 12:38 pm IST Last Updated On Jun 16, 2026 12:39 pm IST

Published On Jun 16, 2026 12:38 pm IST

Last Updated On Jun 16, 2026 12:39 pm IST

There is a temptation to see the Trinamool Congress crisis as a Bengal story alone: Mamata Banerjee's defeat, Abhishek Banerjee's unpopularity with sections of the party, rebel MPs and MLAs testing the limits of loyalty, and a post-power scramble for survival. That would be a mistake.

What is unfolding in the TMC is a cautionary tale for nearly every regional party in India attempting to compress legacy, authority, and future into the hands of a chosen heir.

The latest twist, with a breakaway TMC faction moving towards the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), apparently based in West Bengal and active in Assam and Tripura, makes the crisis larger than a succession drama. It shows how rebellion in Indian politics is no longer merely a matter of walking out. It is increasingly a matter of finding the right procedural shelter, the right symbol, the right legislative arithmetic, and the right minor partner through which a larger realignment can be engineered.

In Indian politics, a founder can build a party through struggle, charisma, ideology, caste mobilisation, regional pride, or personal sacrifice. But the heir rarely inherits all of that. He or she inherits the office, the surname, the access, and often the impatience. The rest has to be earned. This is where the trouble begins.

Mamata Banerjee's authority was not inherited. It was accumulated through bruises. She took on the CPI(M) when the Left still looked unbeatable. She built the TMC from a rebel Congress platform into Bengal's principal political force. Her legitimacy came from confrontation, not coronation. Abhishek Banerjee's rise, however, was read by many inside the party as a transfer of power from aunt to nephew, not as an organic political ascent.

As long as the TMC controlled Bengal, such reservations could be contained. But once the state slipped away, what had been tolerated as "succession" began to be described as "nepotism". What had earlier been accepted as authority began to look like entitlement. 

This is not unique to Trinamool. It is the oldest problem of India's family-led regional parties: those who built the house do not always accept the child who is handed the keys. 

The Congress, though a national party, has not been immune to this logic, either. Its difference is scale: the Gandhis sit atop a far older and wider organisation, but the same question haunts the party - can inherited legitimacy substitute for organisational renewal, electoral proof, and the trust of leaders who have built their own political capital? 

In that sense, the crisis of succession is not only regional; regional parties merely experience it faster, more violently, and with fewer........

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