Confusion has clouded the proposed merger between rebel Trinamool Congress legislators and the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), with some leaders of the little-known party saying on Tuesday that they are yet to receive any communication from lawmakers, even as the dissenters named a new president for the Howrah-based party.
TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who leads the rebel faction, told the media that Jyotiprakash Chatterjee is the new president of the National Party. However, speaking to HT, NCPI leaders said they still knew nothing about the merger negotiations and Chatterjee’s appointment as the new chairman.
“Let us first settle with the bloc that we are trying to merge with another party. Acceptance has already come to us. They are happy to receive us. We will work with the National Democratic Alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. They are looking into the affairs of this merger and how to use the schemes that have not been implemented in West Bengal,” Dastidar told the media in Delhi.
NCPI announced the merger decision on its Facebook page, saying that with 20 MPs, it is now the “largest parliamentary force from West Bengal”. While NCPI has 20 MPs from West Bengal, BJP has 12, TMC eight and Congress one seat, the social media page said. One seat vacant.
“With 20 Lok Sabha seats, the NCP emerges as the largest parliamentary force from West Bengal, and constitutes the voice of the state at the national level. The numbers speak for themselves. Leadership, representation and people’s mandate continue to define the future of Bengal and India,” the party’s social media page says.
The party, which was founded in January 2023, shares its registered office address with an NGO and a local local newspaper in Hatgasha village in Howrah district. It is the residence of Shiuli Kondo, who, along with her husband, Otya Kondo, was among the founding members of the party. Cioli resigned as national president of the party a month ago. Otia remained untraceable.
Read also | Lok Sabha Speaker meets TMC leaders before taking the decision
“You will be able to talk to him (Otia) in a day or two. I don’t know who the current president is. You will find out very soon,” Choi said on Tuesday.
“We have not received any communication from the TMC MPs till Tuesday evening. As of now we are still in the dark about the merger decision. However, we welcome the merger decision,” said Santanu Deo, organizing secretary general and founding member of NCPI.
“We don’t know who Jyotiprakash Chatterjee is and how he was made president. I came to know that Dastidar told the media that NCPI accepted the merger. We don’t know who took the decision and when,” said Dilip Roy, party general secretary and former state president.
Overnight, the three-year-old Indian National Congress became the fifth-largest party in the Lok Sabha — after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The NCP is contesting for voters on three seats in the Tripura Assembly elections in 2023. Aotea and Sholi are among the founding members of the party.
Unrest emerged in the TMC soon after it lost the West Bengal assembly elections last month. At least 59 of the party’s 80 MLAs have formed a breakaway faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee. At the national level, at least 20 MPs rebelled against the party, paving the way for one of the largest defections in India’s parliamentary history.
