Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will hear the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership first before deciding on the demand from 20 rebel TMC MPs to merge with the Nationalist Citizenship Party of India (NCPI), people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
This decision comes in the wake of a letter from TMC National Secretary Abhishek Banerjee asking the TMC Chairman to reject the merger request, since the TMC was a “single indivisible political party” and there was no option of division under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
Birla’s office issued a letter to Abhishek Banerjee, TMC leader in the Lok Sabha, to hold a meeting on Monday, but it could not be held as Abhishek was being questioned by investigative agencies at the time.
“Speaker Om Birla will take a call on the issue of merger of 20 TMC MPs with NCPI only after hearing both sides. The Speaker’s office has also sent an email to the TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee,” a senior official familiar with the details 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 endorsement in the letter, bringing the group to 20 lawmakers.
“This is part of the standard protocol before a decision is made on a split or a merger. The merger is unlikely to be rejected due to the TMC’s objections,” a senior opposition leader said.
Regarding Birla’s invitation to Mamata Banerjee-led TMC MPs for a meeting, TMC MP Saugata Roy said it was a good thing. “It is the duty of the Speaker to be impartial. Before the dissatisfied MPs submitted a letter, the Trinamool Congress had already submitted a letter. I have heard that the Speaker also wrote to the Trinamool Congress as well to meet their MPs. I don’t know if the Trinamool Congress received this letter,” he said.
“There are many contradictions among those who have left. Some of them want to create another group, others want to join the BJP, and they have joined the NCPI. We can already see different opinions within the same group,” Rai said.
A merger of the rebel group with the CNDP would increase the NDA’s strength from 294 to 314 in the Lok Sabha – which is still 46 seats short of ensuring a magic two-thirds majority in the lower house. In the Senate, the distribution of power could reach 155 seats, only 8 seats short of a two-thirds majority.
A BJP MP, who was involved in the process, said the Indian National Congress was an unrecognized party and had contested elections in West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“The decision to merge with NCPI has been taken to retain the rebel connection with West Bengal, but also to give the North-East better representation in the Lok Sabha,” the MP said.
The crisis in the TMC erupted after the party lost the assembly elections last month to the BJP, 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.
