Ritabrata Banerjee

Ritabrata Banerjee (born 15 November 1979 ) is an Indian politician. He is currently serving as the State President of All India Trinamool Trade Union Congress West Bengal. He was elected a Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal in February 2014.

Ritabrata Banerjee
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from West Bengal
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 December 2024
Preceded by	Jawhar Sircar
In office 3 April 2014 – 2 April 2020
Preceded by	Barun Mukherji
Succeeded by	Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya
State President of INTTUC West Bengal
Incumbent
Assumed office 20 November 2020
Preceded by	Madan Mitra
General Secretary of the Students' Federation of India
In office 5 September 2008 – 25 January 2016
Preceded by	K. K. Ragesh
Succeeded by	Vikram Singh
Personal details
Born	(1978-11-15) 15 November 1978 (age 46) Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Political party	Trinamool Congress (2020–present)
Other political affiliations	Independent (2017-2020) Communist Party of India (Marxist) (till 2017)
Alma mater	University of Calcutta (MA) Asutosh College (BA)

Early life

Ritabrata Banerjee has attended school at South Point High School, Kolkata, and obtained BA degree from Asutosh College and MA degrees in English at Calcutta University. He is a full-time political activist and a former General Secretary of the Student Union in his college.^[1]

Political controversy

He has been alleged along with other young comrades for harassment of former Finance minister of West Bengal Amit Mitra in New Delhi. In April 2013 in a protest program organised by Student Federation of India before the Planning Commission, few young members of the student organisation harassed Mr. Mitra.^[2]

He was suspended from CPI(M) party membership on 2 June 2017 for 3 months pending investigations to the allegations of moral turpitude and leaking party secrets to the press.^[3] On 10 October 2017 a lady named Namrata Dutta filed a complaint against Banerjee in Balurghat Police Station for sexual exploitation by promising marriage.^[4][5] Ritabrata denied the accusation claiming the woman was extorting money from him asked him for 50 Lakhs not to file an FIR and uploaded screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation in which she asked him for money.^[6] Subsequently, CID, West Bengal served a notice to him.^[7] Ritabrata was expelled by the CPI(M) after an interview to ABP Ananda television channel in which he spoke against Mohammed Salim. Ritabrata claimed that he was not against the party and only against Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Mohammed Salim.^[8][9]