At least 20 rebel MPs from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday told Parliament Speaker Om Birla that they had merged with a little-known Tripura-based party, strengthening the National Democratic Alliance and paving the way for one of the biggest defections in the history of India’s parliament.
At least 20 TMC lawmakers met Birla on Sunday and submitted a message that the rebel group had merged with the National Citizens Party of India or NCPI, which was formed in 2022 and contested its last elections in 2023.
The party currently has no representative anywhere in the country. According to a Lok Sabha functionary, Birla will now verify the signatures of 20 MPs before approving the merger.
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“We, 20 MPs, have now merged with the National Citizens Party and will work with the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,” rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said after meeting Birla.
The rebels’ meeting with Birla came hours after legislators Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad, both loyalists of party chief Mamata Banerjee, met Birla and were handed a letter from TMC’s Lok Sabha bloc leader Abhishek Banerjee. “Division is no longer available under the Tenth Schedule” and the TMC is “one indivisible political party,” the letter said.
This merger, if approved, will increase the NDA’s strength from 294 to 314 in the Lok Sabha, which is still 46 seats short of ensuring a two-thirds majority in the House. In the Senate, the gubernatorial distribution could be as high as 155 seats, just short of a two-thirds majority.
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A BJP MP, who participated in the discussions, said the Indian National Congress is an unrecognized party and has contested elections in West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“The decision to merge with NCPI was taken to maintain the rebels’ connection with West Bengal, but also to give the North-East better representation in the Lok Sabha,” the BJP MP said.
In a meeting with Birla on Sunday evening, 19 TMC legislators handed over a letter expressing their desire to join NCPI. Rachana Banerjee, a first-time MP currently in Malaysia, gave her approval in the letter, making it a group of 20 lawmakers.
The crisis erupted after the TMC lost assembly elections last month to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which formed its first-ever government in the eastern state. In Bengal, 59 MLAs formed a breakaway faction with Ritabrata Banerjee as leader of the opposition in the assembly, and Dastidar expressed her opposition after she was dropped from the post of chief whip.
The TMC, which played a key role in defeating the Constitution Amendment Bill implementing the women’s quota and demarcation system, will be reduced to just eight seats in the House of Representatives if the merger goes through. In Rajya Sabha, its strength has been reduced from 13 to 10.
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The weakness of the TMC will also affect the India Bloc’s ability to confront the BJP in Parliament. The TMC’s developments come after weeks of rebellion in the Aam Aadmi Party in the Rajya Sabha.
Former TMC Lok Sabha leader Sudeep Bandopadhyay, former party president and key rebel face Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, deputy leader Shatabdi Rai, popular film stars Deepak Adhikari, Saioni Ghosh and John Malliah were among the 20 rebels. Arup Chakraborty, Partha Bhowmick, cricketer Yusuf Pathan, Sharmila Sarkar, Mala Rai, former Indian football captain Prasun Banerjee, Asit Mal, Khalilur Rehman, Abu Tahir Khan, Jagadish Basonia, Kalipada Soren, Mitali Bag, Bappi Haldar and Khaleelur Rahman were also present at the meeting.
In April this year, rebel MP Raghav Chadha and six other MPs resigned from the AAP and joined the BJP.
The 20 TMC rebels may retain their seats by joining the National Council of Resistance, as senior lawyer and independent MP Kapil Sibal said they should be expelled. “TMC rebels: will merge with National Citizens Party. Indian democracy has become a ‘theater of the absurd’. TMC Legislative Party rebels cannot merge with a political party; this can only happen if the TMC wishes to do so! Exclude them!” he posted on X.
The Tenth Schedule of the Constitution provides that disqualification will not apply if the original political party merges with another party and not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislative party approve of such merger.
The TMC leadership has indicated that it may go to court, just as AAP’s Sanjay Singh did after seven MPs from the party joined the BJP.
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“The rebel TMC leaders, who won the TMC symbol and because of Mamata Banerjee, are now standing with folded hands in front of the BJP, which is moral weakness,” Ghose said.
In his letter to Birla, Abhishek Banerjee wrote, “My attention has been drawn to news reports that some Lok Sabha members belonging to the AITC have submitted, or are proposing to submit, a letter to your good office seeking recognition as a group or faction separate from the AITC, independently of the legislative party.”
Citing the Supreme Court ruling in the Maharashtra political crisis case, the TMC leader said that “divisiveness” is no longer available under the 10th Schedule and that the legal framework specifies only one political party.
The letter added, “The Independent Committee of a Political Party is a single, indivisible political party… There is in law only one Independent Committee of a Political Party, one Leader of the Party in the House of Representatives, and one Member, all of whom hold positions under the authority of the Political Party and its competent organizational authority. No member or group of Members may, of their own free will, form a parallel ‘group’ or ‘faction’ of the same party and demand independent recognition within the House.”
The TMC, a regional party that relies mainly on the charisma of Mamata Banerjee, faces a new battle for survival. TMC officers had once shunned the prospect of sharing seats with the Congress. Last week, Mamata Banerjee met Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, and Abhishek Banerjee met Rahul Gandhi to strengthen ties and strengthen the India bloc.
