Who controls TMC? ₹440 crore freeze pushes battle for ownership and legitimacy

The political crisis of TMC has taken a sharp turn for the worse. As the party was dealing with a rebellion from its MPs and MLAs, it is also now facing a battle for control of its party's assets, adding a new dimension to the power struggle. In the most recent development, the state police have frozen three of its bank accounts holding around ₹440 crore. These accounts were placed under “debit freeze”, which prevents withdrawals, but the credit facility remains operational. The party allegedly has roughly ₹600 crore in bank vaults, according to the audited financial disclosures submitted to the Election Commission.

TMC's official treasurer

Ideally, a Party's funds are issued by its National Treasurer, who is the primary legal authority on behalf of the registered political organisation for all its bank accounts. However, the TMC, following the dismal result in the recent State Assembly election, has organised into two camps. The party underwent a restructuring on June 5, after the result, probably presuming a turmoil in the loyalty of its MP and MLA. They appointed former MP Subhashish Chakraborty as the new treasurer of the organisation.

However, Aroop Biswas, the former National Treasurer who is now aligned with the rebel camp, disputes his removal and claims he is still the rightful custodian. He claimed that since the party's leadership is contested by the majority of its electoral officials, his removal is invalid. He further claimed several cheques were signed during his tenure and are sitting at the party office, and are vulnerable to unauthorised use.

Several rebel MLAs went to the cybercrime police station under the Bidhanagar Police Commissionerate in Salt Lake, Kolkata, questioning the source and utilisation of funds that are related to the same accounts maintained with a private sector bank. As per a copy of the complaint submitted to the police, the MLAs sought an investigation into transactions linked to three bank accounts. They are seeking a criminal probe into the ₹160 crore+ as "cut money," extorted wealth, and proceeds from scams. This comes as earlier in the week, Aroop Biswas sought freezing of operations in the accounts, expressing concern over their control and management. Now, the control and management of TMC funds is a multi-pronged battle from election laws to civil and criminal laws.

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The entity battle

The real control of the funds lies with the entity, which is the Trinamool Congress. As the bank has frozen the fund, the rebel faction now must approach the ECI and prove the test of majority under Section 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, as per the precedent set during the Shiv Sena Shinde vs Thackeray and NCP Ajit Pawar vs Sharad Pawar splits. The test of the majority will happen in two wings in the legislative wing and the organisational wing. The ECI will decide how many elected MPs and MLAs support each faction in the legislative wing and how many central working committee and national executives support in the organisational wing. Once the ECI decides which faction is the "real" party, that ruling is taken to a civil court to formally lift the HDFC Bank debit freeze and hand over account access to the recognised treasurer. While the criminal probe settles separately. The TMC leadership, Abhishek Banerjee, met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and sought to disqualify 20 dissident MPs in Parliament. The rebels roughly hold 71 per cent of MPs and 81 per cent of MLAs, a huge numerical majority making it a one-sided battle. But it becomes more entangled as 20 MPs have formally joined NCPI, making their claim null and void.

Further, the battle for entity is likely to become stranger as, according to insider reports, a faction among the rebel group, like June Maila, Saayoni Gosh, and Mitali Bag, want a clean break, while others, the Real TMC group led by Ritabrata Banerjee, insist on fighting the ECI battle specifically and claim the party identity and the frozen assets.