TMC crisis deepens as first MP quits: Who is Sukhendu Sekhar Ray?

Veteran Trinamool Congress leader Sukhendu Sekhar Ray has become the first MP to resign amid the escalating crisis within the party. (File Photo)

3 min readJun 8, 2026 12:54 PM IST

First published on: Jun 8, 2026 at 12:43 PM IST

Sukhendu Sekhar Ray has always been one of the more outspoken leaders in the Trinamool Congress (TMC). A week after a majority of the party’s MLAs charted their own course and elected a legislature leadership team in the West Bengal Assembly, Ray on Monday became the first MP to step down amid fears that more parliamentarians may step down or defect.

This came a day after Ray told The Indian Express that what had happened in the Assembly would be “repeated in Lok Sabha so far as our party is concerned”. But it had not yet started in the Rajya Sabha, he had added. Now, following his resignation, the question is if more MPs will follow in his footsteps.

The 77-year-old is a longtime TMC member and the party’s former Rajya Sabha chief whip and despite being a core leader of the party’s parliamentary group for over a decade, was never much in the limelight. However, it changed when he announced he would join the street protests against the 2024 R G Kar rape and murder, and was replaced as the chief whip soon afterwards.

“Tomorrow I am going to join the protesters particularly because I have a daughter and little granddaughter like millions of Bengali families. We must rise to the occasion. Enough of cruelty against women. Let’s resist together. Come what may,” he wrote on X a day before the “Reclaim the Night” protests led by citizens across the state.

Ray also called for the investigation of RG Kar’s former principal Sandeep Ghosh, who was moved out and given charge of the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital in the aftermath of the incident, and Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal. He also received a notice from the Kolkata Police hours after a post for “spreading rumours”.

Ray’s political career

Ray was born in 1949 in Malda’s English Bazar area. His father Shibendu Sekhar Ray was a renowned Hindu Mahasabha leader in Malda and played a key role around the time of Partition in uniting the people of Malda to push for the district to remain with the Union of India.

Ray, who graduated in law from Calcutta University, began his political career with the Congress in 1968 and was close to former President Pranab Mukherjee. He even edited a book on Mukherjee, titled Pranab Mukherjee: The All Season Man, and wrote a book on Congress’s first president W C Bonnerjee.

Ray followed Mamata Banerjee to the TMC, which was formed on January 1, 1998. He served as the vice president of the Calcutta High Court Bar Association between 2009 and 2011. After Banerjee came to power in 2011, ending more than three decades of Left rule, Ray was sent to the Rajya Sabha and since then he has served three consecutive terms in the Upper House, where he has served as the party’s deputy leader and chief whip.

In 2022, following the suspension of Partha Chatterjee in the alleged school recruitment scam, Ray was appointed the editor of TMC’s mouthpiece Jago Bangla.