New Delhi: Trinamool Congress leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar on Sunday said that 20 of the party’s MPs will merge with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party and extend support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha, ANI reported.
The announcement came after the MPs met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla earlier in the day. It followed a letter submitted to the Speaker by TMC MPs Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghose on behalf of party National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, opposing recognition of any separate faction within the Trinamool Congress in the House.
The letter had originally been sent to the Speaker on Wednesday.
After the meeting with Birla, Dastidar said the breakaway group represented “more than two-thirds of our [TMC’s] total strength”. Senior MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, one of the 20 MPs, said the group would formally seek recognition in July to retain the Trinamool Congress name, claiming that two-thirds of the party’s MPs support the move.
The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC currently has 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Although the party won 29 seats in the 2024 general elections, the MP from Basirhat has since passed away, and a bypoll is yet to be held.
Earlier on June 8, led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, 20 TMC MPs had written to the Speaker expressing support for the ruling National Democratic Alliance.
In his letter to the Speaker, Abhishek Banerjee had urged that the Trinamool Congress be treated as a single political entity represented only through its authorised leader and whip. While he serves as the party’s parliamentary leader, Kalyan Banerjee is the appointed whip.
“The AITC is a single, indivisible political party,” Abhishek Banerjee wrote, adding that the legislative party derives its existence from the political organisation itself. He stressed that there is “only one AITC, one Leader of the Party in the House, and one Whip”.
He also requested that the party be given an opportunity to be heard before any decision is taken on the rebel faction’s plea and warned that the party reserves its right to initiate proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution relating to anti-defection provisions.
Abhishek Banerjee further asserted that the political party, not the legislative wing, is supreme, and said that even if two-thirds of MPs are assumed to have switched, there has been no merger of the political party or creation of any new entity called AITC.
The TMC has been witnessing internal divisions since its defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party. In recent developments, three Rajya Sabha MPs have resigned since Monday, with two quitting the party.
At the state level, expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee has claimed that a group of 58 of the party’s 80 MLAs has been recognised as the legislature wing in the Assembly, a move seen as a challenge to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s leadership.
Meanwhile, the TMC dissolved all its committees and organisational units in the state on June 3, announcing a comprehensive review of its performance and structure.