# Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar quits as Barasat TMC chief over poll loss 2026-08-18T06:57:04+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet Senior Trinamool Congress leader and Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar has resigned as president of the party's Barasat organisational district unit, taking moral responsibility for the party's poor showing in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, Millennium Post reports. In her resignation letter to state TMC chief Subrata Bakshi, Dastidar indirectly criticised the party's election strategy and took a swipe at political consultancy firm I-PAC without naming it. She wrote that success would be difficult through 'mushrooming organisations' and urged the leadership to rely again on honest, experienced grassroots workers to restore the party's image. The resignation follows TMC's major losses in North 24 Parganas district, including several Assembly seats in Barasat and Barrackpore. Dastidar, a three-time MP from Barasat and a long-time associate of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was recently removed as chief whip in the Lok Sabha after the election debacle. ## Coverage - millenniumpost.in This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, Barasat, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Mamata Banerjee, Subrata Bakshi, Trinamool Congress Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/kakoli-ghosh-dastidar-quits-as-barasat-tmc-chief-over-poll-loss/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/kakoli-ghosh-dastidar-quits-as-barasat-tmc-chief-over-poll-loss/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/