The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has officially declared that the campaign poster for its flagship July 21 rally will feature only the party’s supreme leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The image of Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s All India General Secretary and widely regarded second-in-command, has been intentionally omitted—reportedly at his own request.

The announcement came from senior TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay following a high-level meeting at the party’s Bhawanipur office on Priyanath Mallick Road on Saturday. “Abhishek Banerjee himself conveyed that, since he will not be physically present at the rally, his image must not appear in the poster,” Bandyopadhyay clarified, aiming to pre-empt any intra-party speculation.
The campaign design, circulated via pen drive from TMC’s Camac Street headquarters, features only Mamata Banerjee—marking a deliberate break from recent trends that often included Abhishek as the co-face of the party’s youth-oriented future.

A history of image politics

This decision follows lingering undercurrents within the party regarding Abhishek’s visibility in TMC promotional materials. Internal tensions had previously surfaced during the Netaji Indoor Stadium rally in November 2023, when posters excluding Abhishek led to objections from senior leaders like Kunal Ghosh. While Ghosh’s influence has since waned, the incident exposed a deeper power dynamic over symbolism and authority within the party.

Party insiders note that the TMC’s internal “center of gravity” has been shifting. Though Abhishek has gained prominence as a youth icon and strategist, Mamata Banerjee has firmly reasserted her dominance in both governance and organisational matters.

In several closed-door meetings, Mamata Banerjee has reportedly signalled her intention to lead the party for at least the next decade. This message is seen as a recalibration of power, with the TMC matriarch reaffirming her central role amid murmurs of generational transition.

Earlier this year, a controversy around the 2025 party calendar further amplified this narrative. The calendar, distributed from Abhishek’s office, featured both Mamata and Abhishek—but the latter’s image was significantly larger. Once flagged to senior leadership, immediate orders were issued to scrap the calendar, and district units were instructed not to use it.

July 21 rally: Optics, turnout and strategy

The upcoming July 21 rally, a hallmark of TMC’s annual calendar, assumes added significance as the party gears up for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. According to sources, TMC’s state president Subrata Bakshi has instructed all district units to mobilize maximum turnout for what is being billed as a historic show of strength in Kolkata.

“This will be the largest rally the city has ever seen by a single party. We will set a new precedent,” Bandyopadhyay asserted.

The decision to feature only Mamata Banerjee on the rally poster is a symbolic assertion of her unchallenged authority within the Trinamool Congress. With the 2026 political battlefield on the horizon, the message is unambiguous—TMC’s charge will be led in her name, with her face at the forefront of its campaign machinery.