In Bengal, a TMC leader has a second falling-out with the party: Who is Kunal Ghosh?

A former journalist, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Kunal Ghosh often tends to be in the news himself. The latest such instance, which has seen him land in trouble with the party, comes in the middle of a closely contested Lok Sabha election during which he has been removed from his party post and the TMC’s list of star campaigners for targeting the party’s leadership.

Ghosh, among the most well known of the TMC’s spokespersons, first ruffled the party leadership’s feathers for repeatedly targeting its Kolkata North MP and veteran leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay. The breaking point came when on May 1 he attended a blood donation camp in Kolkata North in the company of the BJP’s candidate Tapash Roy and praised him for being the “most competent candidate” in the fray.

Hours later, in a TV interview; he levelled allegations against the TMC’s rank and file. “Even before the 2021 Assembly polls, the party was well aware that large-scale corruption and extortion in lieu of jobs was taking place in the school education department … It was due to the corruption in the education department that Partha Chatterjee was shifted from the Education Ministry to the Industry Department after the party returned to power in 2021.”

Ghosh only sharpened his attacks as the party removed him from his posts on Thursday. “Not only Partha Chatterjee, many other leaders are involved in the jobs scam. One tainted minister is still in the Cabinet and the party leadership hasn’t even rebuked him,” he told reporters, adding that he was still in the TMC. This is not the first time Ghosh has found himself on the wrong side of the TMC leadership. There was a time when he alleged that TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the biggest