The rebellion in the Trinamool Congress appeared to reach a crescendo on Sunday as 19 dissident MPs announced their merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party and met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking a separate seating arrangement in the House.
The MPs, including cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan, Sudip Bandopadhyay and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, met the Speaker and submitted a letter seeking a separate seating arrangement in the House.
Speaking to reporters after meeting the Speaker, rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claimed that two-thirds of the TMC’s Lok Sabha members had submitted a letter seeking recognition as a separate group.
“Two-thirds MPs of TMC have given a letter to the Speaker for a separate seating arrangement. We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party and support the NDA,” she said.
Senior TMC leader and Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the dissident camp had already merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party, which he described as a regional party.
The Nationalist Citizens Party is a lesser-known registered, unrecognised party from Tripura.
Asked about the competing claim of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction, Bandyopadhyay said the issue of who constitutes the “real TMC” would be decided by the courts, and added that they would claim the party’s electoral symbol of two flowers.
“Court will decide later who is the real TMC. We met the Speaker and gave him our request,” he said.
Unlike the AAP split in the Rajya Sabha, the rebel TMC MPs are not seeking a merger with the BJP. They are only seeking recognition as an independent bloc that would support the BJP-led NDA.
With their support, the NDA’s strength in the Lok Sabha would rise to 313.
In a parallel move, TMC parliamentary party leader in the Lok Sabha Abhishek Banerjee also wrote to Speaker Om Birla, saying a separate bloc was impermissible under the law and should not be recognised.
The TMC leadership has maintained that the rebel MPs should resign and seek re-election through bypolls. — with PTI
