Mamata Banerjee is the former Chief Minister of West Bengal. She lost her seat in the 2026 Assembly elections. Suvendu Adhikari defeated her from the Bhabanipur seat by 15,105 votes. In these elections, the Trinamool Congress also faced a big defeat. She refused to resign, and on 7 May 2026, the Assembly was dissolved after completing its five-year term. With this, her time as Chief Minister came to an end.
She is the first woman to serve as Chief Minister of West Bengal. After leaving the Indian National Congress, she founded the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 1998 and became its first president. She is often called “Didi”.
Mamata Banerjee was born on 5 January 1955 in Kolkata in a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family. Her parents were Promileshwar Banerjee and Gayatri Devi. Her father died due to a lack of medical treatment when she was 17 years old. In 1970, she completed her higher secondary exam from Deshbandhu Shishu Shikshalay. She graduated in History from Jogamaya Devi College. Later, she completed a master’s degree in Islamic History from the University of Calcutta. After that, she earned a degree in Education from Shri Shikshayatan College and a law degree from Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College in Kolkata.
Banerjee has served twice as the Minister of Railways in the Government of India, becoming the first woman to do so. She has also been the first woman Coal Minister, and has held roles as Minister of Human Resource Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development.
She became well known in state politics by opposing the land acquisition policy of the then Communist government in Singur, where land was taken from farmers for a Special Economic Zone. In 2011, she won a major victory in West Bengal and ended the 34-year rule of the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
She was a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Bhabanipur from 2011 to 2021. In the 2021 Assembly election, she contested from the Nandigram seat and lost to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. However, her party won a large majority.
Her official Twitter handle is @MamataOfficial. Her Facebook page is called Mamata Banerjee, and she is active on Instagram with the username mamataofficial.
