Kolkata

The presence of several TMC leaders considered close to Mamata Banerjee at Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's administrative review meeting on Wednesday added a fresh political layer to the turbulence engulfing the opposition party, which is battling its biggest internal revolt since losing power in West Bengal.

TMC MLAs Nayana Bandyopadhyay, Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim, Ashok Deb and Kunal Ghosh -- regarded as longtime loyalists of Banerjee -- attended the administrative meeting at Nabanna, even as the party's legislative wing appeared headed for an unprecedented split.

The development came hours after 58 dissident TMC MLAs formally backed expelled legislator Ritabrata Banerjee as the new leader of the legislature party and communicated their decision to Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose.

In a move that could potentially alter the opposition's power structure in the House, Ritabrata Banerjee, accompanied by fellow rebel MLA Sandipan Saha and other dissident legislators, met the Speaker and submitted letters of support purportedly signed by 58 MLAs.

The rebel camp also proposed a new leadership structure, naming Ritabrata Banerjee as legislature party leader, Javed Khan, Sandipan Saha and Shiuli Saha as deputy leaders, and Raghunathganj MLA Akhruzzaman as the chief whip.

Ritabrata Banerjee, Khan and Saha were also seen attending the administrative meeting of the CM.

The developments followed a meeting of dissident legislators at the Assembly earlier in the day.

Significantly, none of the MLAs who attended the rebels' gathering had been seen at Mamata Banerjee's dharna in central Kolkata on Tuesday, underscoring the widening gulf between the party's traditional leadership and the dissident bloc.

Interestingly, several leaders identified with the Kalighat leadership -- including Hakim, Bandyopadhyay, Deb and Ghosh -- stayed away from the Assembly meeting and instead attended the chief minister's administrative meeting.

Just days earlier, senior TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, along with six party MLAs, had attended an administrative review meeting convened by Adhikari at Kalyani, sparking speculation about changing equations within the opposition camp in the aftermath of the assembly election debacle.

With Wednesday's Nabanna meeting drawing another set of TMC leaders, political observers said the distinction between administrative engagement and political messaging was becoming increasingly blurred in the state's rapidly evolving post-poll landscape.

The BJP government has sought to project such meetings as inclusive administrative exercises.

During the previous TMC regime, BJP leaders had frequently alleged that opposition legislators were kept away from official review meetings.

Soon after taking office, Adhikari announced that opposition MPs and MLAs would also be invited to government programmes and district-level administrative review meetings.

Reacting to the participation of TMC legislators in such meetings last week, Kunal Ghosh maintained that the issue was under discussion within the party.

"We are not in favour of boycotting administrative meetings called by the state government. But when our party workers are being assaulted and rendered homeless in post-poll violence, we need to think twice before attending such meetings. Our party is also discussing whether we should continue participating in these meetings or not," he had said.

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The turmoil comes against the backdrop of the TMC's crushing assembly election defeat and growing uncertainty over the party's future leadership structure.