Won't resign, poll results not people's mandate but conspiracy: Mamata

New Delhi: In her first media interaction after the Trinamool Congress’s crushing defeat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee categorically refused to step down.

“I will not resign,” Banerjee said, adding that she “has not lost” but was “forced to lose”.

The BJP has registered a historic landslide victory, flipping several TMC bastions, including Banerjee’s own Bhabanipur seat, and triggering calls for her immediate resignation.

Banerjee made it clear that she will not submit her resignation to the Governor and will continue to fight as the Leader of the Opposition.

Banerjee said several leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc had reached out to her to express solidarity following the poll outcome.

“INDIA bloc leaders called me up to express solidarity. Sonia ji and Rahul Gandhi have spoken to me,” she said.

Banerjee said that she would now focus on strengthening the opposition alliance at the national level.

In a mandate as sweeping as it is symbolic, the BJP on Monday scripted history by winning 207 seats to secure more than a two-thirds majority in the West Bengal assembly polls, ending the TMC’s 15-year rule, and decisively shifting the state’s ideological and political centre of gravity.

The verdict acquired added political drama and symbolic heft as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was defeated in the prestigious Bhabanipur seat by BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, capping a stunning turnaround after initial trends appeared to favour the TMC supremo.