Sovandeb Chattopadhyay Sovandeb Chattopadhyay is an Indian politician from West Bengal and is the first elected MLA of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 1998. He was the founder president of the Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress, the labour wing of the party. Earlier to TMC, he was a Congress member. During the first stint of the TMC government in West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee s leadership from 2011 to 2016, Chattopadhyay was the Government Chief Whip in the West Bengal Vidhan Sabha. In the second term in 2016, he took charge of the Ministry of Power & Non-Conventional Energy of West Bengal. The 77-year-old politician was a boxer in his younger days and is a veteran trade union leader, with degrees in science and law. He is also the president of the Kolkata Auto Rickshaw Operators’ Union.