TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Sovan Chatterjee. File
| Photo Credit: Sanjoy Ghosh
After seven years of being ousted from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), former Kolkata Municipal Corporation Mayor Sovan Chatterjee is back in a top civic body post in Kolkata. This comes days after he met with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, which led to rumours about his formal comeback into the State’s ruling party right before the 2026 State Assembly elections.
“In exercise of power conferred by sub-Section (3) of Section 3 of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority Act, 2007, the Governor is pleased to appoint Shri Sovan Chatterjee as Chairman, Newtown Kolkata Development Authority [NKDA], until further order,” a formal order from the Government of West Bengal said on Friday (October 17, 2025).
Notably, former Chief Secretary Alapan Bandhopadhyay used to hold the NKDA chairman position before Mr. Chatterjee was appointed in his place. Mr. Chatterjee met with Ms. Banerjee in North Bengal three days back on Wednesday (October 15). He had also met Abhishek Banerjee, the second in command in TMC, a few weeks before meeting Ms. Banerjee.
This official post back in his second stint with the TMC as the chairman of NKDA has been observed by many as a soft launch back into the ruling party in the State.
“This is a huge responsibility that Didi has entrusted me with. I will try my best to live up to these responsibilities,” Mr. Chatterjee said. He further added that he is looking forward to this new role and responsibilities.
Mr. Chatterjee’s return to prominence has sparked political chatter. “Where Sovan wants to stay is his decision,” BJP MP Sukanta Majumdar said.
However, another senior BJP leader and former Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy took a sharper dig at the development, cautioning his party against repeating past mistakes. “Kolkata’s ex-mayor Sovan Chatterjee joins the ranks of the Trojan horses who left TMC, joined BJP before 2021 elections, were rewarded with electoral tickets and oodles of money by courtesy of the Kailash Vijayvargiya gang, and returned to TMC,” Mr. Roy said in a social media post on X.
A long road back to TMC
Mr. Chatterjee, who is a former heavyweight of the TMC and a close aide of party founder chairperson Mamata Banerjee, left the party after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He held the position of the KMC Mayor from 2010 to 2018 and also multiple important Ministries in the Mamata Banerjee Government’s Cabinet.
The former TMC Minister had also joined the Bharatiya Janata Party for a brief period before the 2021 State Assembly elections. However, he left soon after and said that “it was a Himalayan blunder” to join the BJP.
He resigned from his mayorship in November 2018 and joined the BJP in August 2019. However, he left the Opposition party in 2021 after he was denied the ticket to contest the elections from Behala Purba, an area of residence and political stronghold.
Once a close confidant of Ms. Banerjee and one of the most influential figures in Kolkata’s civic politics, Mr. Chatterjee’s fall from grace had become a subject of much speculation in political circles, particularly after his private life became a subject of public attention.
Published – October 19, 2025 12:00 pm IST
