Trinamool Congress split spills into cash battle as rebels target Rs 1,100-crore war chest
Deliberate strategy by dissidents to sever Mamata-Abhishek's access to 'white money' in banks
The massive financial apparatus built during Trinamool Congress’s 15-year run in power has become a key battlefield, with the dissident bloc moving to legally freeze a legitimate “white-money” war chest with over Rs 1,100 crore.
Now, the party’s wealth is trapped in an internal coup. In Trinamool’s audited accounts submitted to the Election Commission in October 2025, signed by none other than the now “compromised” and removed treasurer Aroop Biswas, the party held Rs 1,018.78 crore in declared assets on March 31, 2025.
Mamata Banerjee loyalists state that this figure rose beyond Rs 1,100 crore by May 31 this year.
Multiple sources within the Ritabrata Banerjee-led rebel bloc said that this audited figure represents only a partial view of the “white” liquidity of Mamata and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, claiming an extra Rs 300-500 crore in legitimate money exists across small accounts and regional trusts not visible in the overall filings submitted to the EC.
“The total goes up to over Rs 1,500 crore. We have definite information,” said a rebel bloc source. “A substantial chunk of the Rs 1,600-plus crore made from electoral bonds is just hawa (vanished) already... we don’t want the same to happen to the money in banks.”
Public records show that Trinamool ran the second-most successful funding harvest in the country through the now-defunct electoral bond scheme, pulling in Rs 1,609.53 crore. Surpassing even the Congress, Trinamool trailed only the BJP.
Rebel sources confirmed they are executing a deliberate strategy to sever Kalighat from money in banks. The offensive began taking physical shape with a directive sent by Biswas to a private bank in south Calcutta, demanding immediate status quo on all debit transactions.
More trouble ahead for TMC? BJP govt may table CAG reports of last 4 years
Already facing charges of widespread corruption during its 15 years in power in West Bengal, more trouble possibly awaits the Trinamool Congress (TMC) as the new BJP government is likely to table reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) from the last four years during the ongoing Budget session in the state Assembly.
The last CAG report tabled in the Assembly by the previous TMC government was for the 2020-21 financial year.
Since then, the TMC government did not table the auditor’s reports for the 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 financial years despite the directions of then Governor C V Ananda Bose.
“The CAG reports always flagged corrupt practices of the TMC government. Naturally, the state government was not happy with the CAG reports and did not want them to be published,” said a senior state Finance Department official.
While the Suvendu Adhikari government will present the Budget for the current financial year on Monday, it is not clear when the CAG reports will be released.
The current Assembly session will continue until June 25, and will resume on July 6 after a brief recess. The CAG has flagged that from 2011 to 2020 the West Bengal government did not submit utilisation certificates (UCs) amounting to Rs 2.29 lakh crore of Central grants.
The UCs are documents submitted by the beneficiaries of grants, or welfare schemes and projects, endorsing the receipt and proper utilisation of funds.
As per the state government’s rules, UCs have to be collected from grantees within a year of disbursal of grants by officers of the department through which the funds had been disbursed.
“It is assumed that UCs are not submitted if the funds have not been utilised properly and have been misappropriated,” said an official.
The 2020-21 CAG report stated that the state Panchayat and Rural Development Department had the maximum pendency of UCs (81,950 UCs, amounting to Rs 81,839 crore), followed by the School Education Department (38,117 UCs for Rs 36,850 crore), and the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs Department (34,837 UCs for Rs 30,693 crore).
“In the absence of UCs, it could not be ascertained whether the recipients had utilised the grants for the purposes for which these were given.
This assumes greater importance as pendency in non-submission of UCs is fraught with the risk of misappropriation,” the report stated, adding that despite successive audit reports flagging the issue of non-submission of UCs, the TMC government remained unaffected.
In that last tabled report, the CAG also flagged the “non-submission of detailed contingent (DC) bills” years after funds were withdrawn from the state exchequer through abstract contingent (AC) bills.
Money is drawn from the exchequer through AC bills in case of contingencies such as floods, erosion, droughts, and other natural disasters, or to provide relief and meet other contingency expenses for events and happenings that are unforeseen.
The state government’s rules stipulate that DC bills with clearer and verifiable details of the funds withdrawn through AC bills have to be submitted within a maximum period of 60 days of the withdrawal of funds.
The report stated that as of March 2021, 11,321 DC bills totalling Rs 3,400 crore had not been submitted. “Pending DC bills reflect accounting indiscipline by government functionaries and controlling authorities, leading to risk of fraud, temporary misappropriation and embezzlement of funds,” the auditor said.
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