Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Kalyan Banerjee

New Delhi: East Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar on Thursday lodged a formal complaint with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against party MP and current Chief Whip Kalyan Banerjee, alleging that he had ‘repeatedly verbally abused’ her inside Parliament.“I seek your permission to file a formal complaint for redressal against AITC Lok Sabha member Kalyan Banerjee, who has repeatedly verbally abused me inside the Lok Sabha. This misogyny is against many women members and needs to be punished,” Dastidar said in his letter to the Speaker.The complaint comes amid rising tension within the Trinamool Congress following Dastidar’s recent resignation from key organizational posts and public criticism of some sections of the party leadership following the party’s poor performance in the 2026 assembly elections.The four-time MP from Barasat resigned from all organizational responsibilities in TMC on Wednesday, a day after attending the former chief minister’s event. Mamata BanerjeeAsked not to attend the administrative review meeting in Kalyani despite alleged instructions from the party.Dastidar, who earlier served as the national president of the TMC women’s wing and was associated with the party’s ‘Banga Janani’ programme, informed state party president Subrata Bakshi that she would no longer hold organizational roles. The party is yet to officially comment on his latest move.Taking ‘moral responsibility’ for TMC’s defeat in Barasat, he resigned from the post of president of the party’s Barasat organizational district unit. The resignation was accepted by the party, which later appointed Tapas Chatterjee as the new district chief.Dastidar had also publicly attacked political consultancy firm I-PAC and accused it of pressurizing party leaders and workers and contributing to the party’s electoral decline.He had said, “The way this organization has operated and mistreated us, the way they have pressured us, this is not the way to operate. Wherever they go, I think they will deliver dangerous results in the elections.”Veteran TMC leader Dastidar, considered close to Mamata Banerjee for a long time, was removed from the post of party chief whip in the Lok Sabha after the defeat in the assembly elections and Kalyan Banerjee was appointed in his place.He had alleged increasing ‘criminalisation’ within the party and urged the leadership to once again rely on ‘honest, experienced and dedicated’ workers to rebuild the TMC’s image after the electoral setback.