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A planned march by the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress was stopped at Rajabazar in Kolkata on Tuesday 13 October 2026, when heavy police and paramilitary deployment blocked the route towards Park Circus. According to The Week, party leaders chose not to confront the forces and called off the march, ending a protest that had been meant to cover about five kilometres.
The demonstrators demanded the resignation and arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the SIR exercise, the revision of electoral rolls being carried out in West Bengal. Trinamool MLAs Kunal Ghosh and Sobhadeb Chattopadhyay took part in the demonstration at the site. Mamata Banerjee did not lead it: she remained at her residence, having returned from New Delhi on Monday after taking part in protests by the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.
The standoff followed a public warning from Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday night. Speaking during a visit to a Durga Puja pandal, he said: “We will not allow them to come out. I have instructed the CP that the rally shouldn’t move a step forward from Rajabazar.” Kolkata Police Commissioner Ajay Nand said: “We do not have any information regarding any rally or any official intimation.” The police position was that no formal notice had been given of the procession.
The episode also shows how the party has changed. The Election Commission recognises two factions of the Trinamool, according to The Week: Mamata Banerjee’s group as the “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress”, with the football as its symbol, and a rival group as the “Democratic Trinamool Congress”, with the envelope. The march was organised by the first group. The party ruled West Bengal for 15 years until the BJP won the assembly elections earlier this year, and the BJP has since also won the Nandigram and Rejinagar by-elections.
The protest’s subject is a national dispute and not only a Bengal one. Opposition parties have objected to the special revision of electoral rolls in several states and have accused the Election Commission of irregularities. The reports reviewed here do not give the Election Commission’s response to this particular demand, and IndiaX24 has not found a statement from Gyanesh Kumar on the Kolkata march. The Statesman and other outlets had reported in advance that the faction planned a rally against the Commission and the Centre, and Kolkata Police made clear before it began that the route would not be cleared.
The Week said party leaders chose compliance over confrontation and halted the protest without proceeding to Park Circus. That decision avoided a clash in a city already preparing for Durga Puja, but it also showed the limits of the faction’s street power now that the state government and the police are controlled by its rival, the BJP.
The next steps are unclear. The reports do not say whether the faction will seek police permission for a new route or move the protest to the courts or to Delhi. For the state government, the event was a test of how it handles opposition protests in the festival season, when the police are already stretched by Durga Puja crowd arrangements. IndiaX24 will report on any fresh programme announced by the Mamata faction and on any response from the Election Commission.
Featured image: Mamata Banerjee, leader of the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress (file photo, 2014). Photo by Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission Belur Math, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.