It was 9:33 pm when TMC leader Derek O’Brien stepped out of his car at the main gate of former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence — and made a startling claim: there was not a single police officer in sight.
O’Brien filmed himself deliberately parking his vehicle at the main entrance to prevent any unauthorised person from entering, and posted the video on social media. The act was as much a political statement as it was a security measure — a public call-out of what TMC alleged was a deliberate withdrawal of the former CM’s protection.
THE PSO CONTROVERSY: At the heart of the row are two names: Swaroop Goswami and Kusum Kumar Dwivedi — Mamata Banerjee’s Personal Security Officers (PSOs) for the past 20 years. A PSO is a close-protection police officer assigned to a VIP, responsible for protecting the principal against possible threats, operating alone or as part of a team in both armed and unarmed roles. O’Brien alleged both had been removed and replaced with officers Mamata does not know. (Representational Image)
HOW SECURITY IS ASSIGNED: India’s VIP security framework runs from X category (one PSO) up to Z+, which is provided by CRPF commandos or other central armed police forces, with personnel trained in martial arts, unarmed combat, and equipped with modern communication equipment. For state-level protectees like a former chief minister, the state government — through its police department — assigns and rotates PSOs via an official duty roster.
TMC’S POLITICAL ALLEGATION: TMC claimed the Combat Force personnel who were supposed to be at the residence had, at that precise time, gone to Kalighat Police Station — leaving the former CM’s gate unmanned. The party alleged the timing was not coincidental: Mamata had led a rally that very day and had filed a legal challenge over the Bhowanipore assembly election result. “This is political vendetta,” the party said.
NABANNA RESPONDS: In the days after the BJP’s decisive victory in the 2026 West Bengal elections — which ended TMC’s 15-year rule — security arrangements outside Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence had already been scaled down. Now, Nabanna (the state secretariat under the new BJP government) clarified: Mamata continues to receive Z+ category security — the full complement of cover that protocol entitles a former chief minister to. Nothing has been withdrawn, the government said.
SUVENDU’S STANDING ORDER: Sources said Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had, on his very first day at Nabanna, personally instructed the state DGP and Kolkata Police Commissioner to ensure there were no lapses in the former CM’s security. “She is elderly. Make sure she faces no difficulty and that her protection has no shortcomings,” he had reportedly told them. Nabanna maintained that instruction remained in force.
The dispute ultimately comes down to this: Mamata wants her trusted PSOs of two decades back. Nabanna says that is not how the system works — officers are rotated by duty roster, and personal preferences have no place in administrative protocol. For TMC, that answer is not good enough. For the BJP government, it is simply procedure. Between those two positions sits a woman who once commanded the state’s entire security apparatus — and must now depend on it from the other side.
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