Rebel Trinamool Congress leader Ritabharata Banerjee on Friday distanced the dissident MLA camp from the decision taken by rebel party MPs to merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), saying the legislators under his leadership have no plans to join the Tripura-based outfit.
Banerjee, who has emerged as the face of the rebellion in the West Bengal Assembly and claims the support of 64 out of the TMC’s 80 MLAs, said the MLAs had neither discussed nor considered merging with the NCPI.
“We only came to know about the MPs’ decision through media reports. That is their collective stand. As far as our group is concerned, no such proposal or discussion has taken place,” Banerjee said.
All About NCPI
The NCPI is a registered but unrecognised political party based in Tripura with limited electoral presence. In the 2023 Tripura Assembly elections, the party contested three seats, but its candidates either secured fewer votes than NOTA or finished only marginally ahead.
The crisis within the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress deepened earlier this week after 20 rebel MPs, reportedly led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, announced their merger with the NCPI and later met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking separate seating arrangements in Parliament.
Adding another twist to the political turmoil, Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the rebel faction would approach the courts to seek recognition as the “real” Trinamool Congress and stake claim to the party’s election symbol.
Meanwhile, TMC MPs Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghose submitted a letter from party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him not to recognise any separate faction within the party.
In the letter, Abhishek Banerjee reportedly argued that the Constitution and anti-defection provisions do not allow the creation of a separate group within an existing political party. The official TMC camp has maintained that under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, a merger is valid only if the original political party itself merges, and not merely a section of its MPs.
The Trinamool Congress is currently facing one of the biggest organisational crises since its formation in 1998 after simultaneous rebellions erupted within both its parliamentary and legislative wings following the party’s poor performance in the recent Assembly elections.
A section of the dissatisfaction within the party has reportedly been directed at Abhishek Banerjee and Mamata Banerjee’s continued backing of him.
Last week, 64 MLAs broke away from the party’s official camp and were recognised as a separate legislative formation, with Ritabharata Banerjee being recognised as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
On Friday, Banerjee claimed that more than two-thirds of the TMC’s MLAs had already submitted their names to the Speaker and said a floor test could be conducted to determine the actual strength of the rival camps.
However, the Mamata Banerjee-led faction has dismissed the dissidents’ claims as politically motivated and insisted that the party remains united under its current leadership.
