Indira Gandhi faced Mamata-moment twice. How did she emerge the winner?

As reports suggest, former West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee could lose control of the Trinamool Congress she founded. There's an intriguing parallel. Former PM Indira Gandhi was expelled from her party twice. Once while she was in power. This is what she did and how she emerged a winner both times.

"Sorrow comes in like a circle and cannot be rolled up as a mat."

That's how Indira Gandhi described the pain of betrayal after her and the Congress' defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls, according to biographer Pupul Jayakar. Many of her closest associates had deserted her. This was the first election after the Emergency was imposed in 1975. The Congress party she had led to historic victories wanted her gone. Political rivals were convinced her career was over. The rivals had said something similar in 1969, eight years earlier.

The first time Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Congress was by the party's powerful old guard, the Syndicate, after a bitter tussle over the presidential election. Around a decade later, in 1978, after the Emergency was lifted and the Janata wave swept India, Indira Gandhi again found herself isolated in the Congress. She was eventually expelled by the Congress leadership. They wanted to move beyond her. Twice, she lost control of the Congress. Twice, she built new Congress factions. Twice, she returned stronger than before.

Now in 2026, these two stories of Indira have interesting and fascinating parallels amid reports suggesting former West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee might be losing control over the Trinamool Congress, the party she founded nearly three decades ago. The breakaway faction, led by MLA Ritabrata Banerjee, has taken control of the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly. "Real Trinamool" is the suggested name. In the Parliament, even her loyalists have joined the rebel group. Mamata's former aide and MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said the Election Commission would now determine the "real Trinamool Congress".

Then there was a buzz that Mamata was considering a merger of the Trinamool Congress with the Congress. The Congress leadership, after marathon meetings, has refuted such claims. And, if the signs are anything to go by, Mamata could be losing the name and symbol of Trinamool Congress.

But, as you know, parallels have limits. The Congress of the 1960s and 1970s was different from the Trinamool Congress of today. Indira Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee are different political personalities operating in different times. Circumstances are vastly different too. Still, a comparison is tempting and inevitable. Indian politics has seen this movie before, mind tells you. A mass leader is losing control of her own party.

The first time, in 1969, Indira Gandhi's party bosses turned against her. She bypassed the organisation and directly appealed to the people. Congress (R) was born. The second expulsion in 1977 gave birth to Congress (I). In both instances, the organisation was larger, experienced and seemingly more powerful than the individual. This is the story of how Indira beat the odds.

INDIRA GANDHI'S FIRST EXPULSION FROM CONGRESS. WHY SYNDICATE TOOK ON INDIRA?

When PM Lal Bahadur Shastri died in January 1966, many Congress bosses believed Indira Gandhi would be easier to manage than Morarji Desai. He had been the CM of Bombay State, a Union minister under PM Jawaharlal Nehru, the Finance Minister in PM Lal Bahadur Shastri's Cabinet. Many Congress MPs saw him as the natural successor of PM Shastri. The powerful group of regional satraps later known as the "Syndicate" supported Indira Gandhi's elevation.

The Syndicate comprised of leaders such as K Kamaraj, S Nijalingappa, Atulya Ghosh, SK Patil and Biju Patnaik. According to Neerja Chowdhury's How Prime Ministers Decide, they exercised an "unyielding grip" over the Congress and controlled many state units.

But the Syndicate's assumption did not last. The leaders who had helped make Indira Gandhi PM discovered that she was far less pliable than they had imagined.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION THAT BROKE THE CONGRESS FIRST

By 1969, Indira Gandhi and the Syndicate were locked in a struggle over who would control the Congress and the government. The immediate flashpoint was the presidential election following the death of President Zakir Husain. The Syndicate-backed Congress Parliamentary Board chose Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. Indira backed Vice-President VV Giri and called for a "conscience vote", appealing MPs and MLAs to vote independently. VV Giri won.

The victory shattered the authority of the party Syndicate. Congress president S Nijalingappa responded by expelling Indira Gandhi from the party in November 1969.

The face-off culminated in "the formal split in the Indian National Congress", former President Pranab Mukherjee wrote in his book, The Dramatic Decade The Indira Gandhi Years.

Congress split into Congress (R), led by Indira, and Congress (O), led by the old guard.

WHAT HELPED INDIRA? BET ON PEOPLE OR LEFT TURN?

PM Indira responded. She didn't retreat. She challenged the legitimacy of those trying to remove her. Pranab Mukherjee recorded Indira saying it was "presumptuous on the part of this handful of men to take disciplinary action against the democratically elected leader of the people".

The numbers in Parliament initially appeared to favour Congress (O). It controlled much of the party machinery and veteran leaders. But Indira had something they lacked; a mass appeal.

By then, Indira Gandhi had made a Left turn, nationalising 14 major banks in July 1969 and projecting herself as a leader willing to confront entrenched interests. Mukherjee described bank nationalisation as a "bold and decisive action" through which Indira "once again assumed the initiative and occupied centre stage".

Author Pupul Jayakar, in Indira Gandhi: A Biography, noted that after the split, Indira lost her parliamentary majority and had to rely on support from parties such as the CPI and the DMK. But attempts to unseat Indira Gandhi through a no-confidence motion failed. Congress (O) had the party. Indira retained the prime ministership and increasingly the public imagination.

Soon came the decisive test. The 1971 Lok Sabha election. Indira turned the contest into a presidential-style battle between herself and the Syndicate. Her "Garibi Hatao" campaign resonated with voters. Congress (R) swept the polls while Congress (O) was reduced to the margins.

The organisation or the old guard expelled Indira. It lost the party's biggest vote-puller.

INDIRA GANDHI EXPELLED FROM CONGRESS AGAIN, THIS TIME AFTER EMERGENCY

The second expulsion of Indira Gandhi was arguably more serious. This was at a time when she had been defeated.

In 1977, Indira Gandhi suffered the worst defeat of her career. The Emergency had damaged her image. The Janata Party swept to power. Many Congress leaders believed the party needed to distance itself from her.

Pupul Jayakar wrote that the defeat left Indira with a "deep sense of betrayal and sorrow". She recalled how many associates abandoned her when power slipped away. This was when she said, "Sorrow comes in like a circle and cannot be rolled up as a mat."

Within the Congress, a struggle emerged over whether Indira should continue to lead the party.

Pranab Mukherjee, who remained loyal to her, provided a detailed account of the period. He wrote that efforts were made to isolate Indira Gandhi and that she "was not even considered a part of the collective leadership". While she travelled across the country, many local party organisations avoided her programmes with the tacit support of the national leadership.

HOW INDIRA GANDHI STAYED POPULAR WITHOUT CONGRESS LEADERSHIP's SUPPORT

The Congress leadership, after the 1977 debacle (led by Brahmananda Reddy), tried to write Indira off. But she continued to draw crowds wherever she went.

Pranab Mukherjee recounted that after emerging from a period of self-imposed confinement, she toured India, visiting places such as Belchi in Bihar (now a block Patna District).

The visit to Belchi in 1977 was one of her most politically symbolic journeys, where she rode on an elephant through flood-hit terrain to meet Dalit victims of caste violence, a visit that helped revive her image as a leader connected to the masses.

Her visits "drew huge crowds" and demonstrated that "the crowd-puller in her remained as active as ever". The former President added that the "surge of popular enthusiasm for Indira Gandhi reassured us that the party could overcome all crises under her leadership".

This became the foundation of Indira Gandhi's comeback. Congress workers were mobilised. A leadership change was demanded by the Indira camp. They argued that Congress could not recover without Indira. Pranab Mukherjee publicly said that "Mrs Gandhi is indispensable for the Congress organisation" and warned that leaders humiliating her were responsible for pushing the party towards a split. Indira loyalists had already begun building parallel networks, including a youth forum.

WHY INDIRA GANDHI WAS EXPELLED FROM CONGRESS IN 1978

The confrontation culminated on the first and the second days of January 1978.

Thousands of Indira Gandhi's supporters, Congress workers, AICC members, MPs, MLAs and members organised a "National Convention of Congressmen" in New Delhi. They elected Indira Gandhi as Congress president. It was a challenge to the leadership of Brahmananda Reddy.

The party leadership under Reddy responded by expelling Indira. According to Neerja Chowdhury's How Prime Ministers Decide, 54 Congress MPs moved with Indira Gandhi while many senior leaders stayed with the old organisation. Her faction became Congress (I) — the "I" standing for Indira.

It was a risky move. The gamble paid off. Within two years, in 1980, Indira Gandhi reclaimed the political centre stage. The Congress (I) came to power. It became the principal Congress faction, while the rival one steadily declined.

Pupul Jayakar quoted academic-historian Raj Mohan Gandhi's observation after Indira's death that no chronicler could ignore "her 1980 comeback" and her ability to "stand unmoved before a hostile crowd".

All said, comparison with Mamata Banerjee has limits. However, Indira Gandhi's story shows us that losing a party does not always mean losing the people. For Indira, the sorrow of betrayal and expulsion turned into her resurrection. Twice.

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