‘Defeated by conspiracy’: West Bengal chief minister refuses to resign after election loss

A political showdown is taking place in the Indian state of West Bengal as the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee – India’s most powerful female politician – has dramatically refused to resign after she lost elections to the prime minister’s party this week. On Monday, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) won an overwhelming victory in the state elections in West Bengal, where Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress party (TMC) have been in power for 15 years. But in a dramatic press conference on Tuesday night, Banerjee accused the BJP of “forcefully capturing” the elections and made it clear she had no intention of stepping down, paving the way for a constitutional crisis in the state. “Why should I step down? We have not lost,” she said. “The mandate has been looted. Where does the question of resignation arise?” She added that TMC were “defeated not by public mandate but by conspiracy”. Under India’s constitution, Banerjee, 71, cannot legally remain as chief minister given TMC’s loss in the election. In a statement, the governor of West Bengal said that if Banerjee did not step aside voluntarily they would send the police to “evict her” from her office. The case could also go to the supreme court. The BJP already moved to ban advisers appointed by Banerjee from entering their offices. The BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, called Banerjee’s refusal to step down “constitutional blasphemy”. “What Mamata Banerjee has said and done today is deeply unfortunate. …