Kolkata/New Delhi: The battle for the ‘real’ Trinamool Congress (TMC) intensified as a big group of rebel MPs met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at his residence on Sunday evening to emphasise that they are a separate and leading group of the party.
The rebel MPs had a second round of meeting with BJP leader Bhupender Yadav, the saffron party’s Bengal in-charge, before proceeding to the Speaker’s place.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who spearheaded the revolt last month weeks after TMC lost the West Bengal Assembly election to the BJP, claimed that 20 MPs are in the group, with 2 more expected to join, making them the majority group among 28 elected members of the Mamata Banerjee-headed party.
Meanwhile, Abhishek Banerjee – the man singled out by most of the revolting MPs and MLAs – wrote to the Speaker stat
ing that TMC is “a single, indivisible political party”.
The letter was handed to the Speaker by MPs Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghose, who have stood by Mamata and Abhishek.
The beleaguered Abhishek, who is facing a CID investigation in a signature forgery case besides FIRs pertaining to other complaints, is still officially the parliamentary leader of TMC and also its national general secretary.
Abhishek’s letter is meant to prevent the Speaker from recognising the rebel MPs as an independent unit.
Kakoli has stated that her group wants to be seated separately from the TMC MPs and work with NDA.
The Trinamool has rejected the rebels’ contention and maintained that anti-defection law does not allow formation of a separate group within Parliament.
“The crucial condition is that the original party has to merge with another party. There is no legal provision for a ‘separate group’ inside Parliament or an Assembly while sitting on an MP or MLA seat won on the original party’s name and symbol. The law is clear. No separate group inside the House on the same symbol is legal. Merge with a new party or be disqualified,” TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said in a post on X.
BJP’s Bengal leaders have made it clear that the TMC rebels won’t be inducted into the saffron party.
The buzz is that these 20-odd MPs will be advised to ‘merge’ with a smaller party of NDA, which will allow them to claim the party’s symbol.