New Delhi: Veteran Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray believes that the party may crumble in Parliament “sooner than anybody imagined”, mirroring the dizzying pace at which Mamata Banerjee’s MLAs abandoned her on Wednesday.
“I have come to know from two-three most reliable sources that a similar collapse of the parliamentary party might also happen soon,” Ray told The Telegraph, refusing to reveal the sources of his information. “Sooner than anybody imagined.”
The 77-year-old, who has been a Rajya Sabha MP since 2011, earned the party’s ire in 2024 for supporting the street protests against the R G Kar rape and murder.
He was removed from his post as editor of the party mouthpiece Jago Bangla and was also replaced as chief whip of the party in the Rajya Sabha. He was also summoned by the Kolkata Police for questioning.
“Yes, talks are happening. They are taking place for real… very much so. Feelers are being sent from concerned, relevant quarters to numerous (Trinamool) MPs,” he said. “Undeniable. Unstoppable too, perhaps.”
A rebel faction requires a two-third majority to bypass the anti-defection law under the Tenth Schedule. The TMC, which is the third-largest party in Parliament after the BJP and the Congress, has 28 Lok Sabha MPs at the
moment after the death of Basirhat MP Haji Nurul Islam and 13 Rajya Sabha members.
A rebel group in Parliament will need the support of 19 Lok Sabha and 9 Rajya Sabha members, to pull off a Kolkata-like operation, where 58 of the party’s 80 MLAs broke away, refusing to accept Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
A similar thing could happen in Parliament, Ray said.
“Two-thirds of Trinamool MPs in either House could soon approach the Lok Sabha Speaker or the Rajya Sabha Chairman to claim they are the ashol (real) Trinamool,” the lawyer-MP said. “After that, it’s the presiding officer’s prerogative.”
The newspaper reported that at least nine Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha members had already expressed their “extreme eagerness” for negotiations.
Apart from “disgruntled” MPs who appeared to be bound for the BJP, at least two TMC Lok Sabha members are said to be trying to gain entry to the Congress, having initiated back-channel conversations with Rahul Gandhi’s “emissaries”, it has been reported.
Ray wrote on X on May 19 that republics fall “when profligates thrive and the wise are banished from the council”.
He tied the party’s debacle in the Assembly elections to a popular revolt against misrule a week later and wrote: “On 44 BC, the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Senate on the Ides of March.
“As per Roman calendar, Ides generally meant (the) 15th of March, May, July and October. But before Ides of May, people of West Bengal put an end to (an) unbearable anarchical situation,” he added.
When asked whether he had been approached as part of the purported plan for a parliamentary break-up, Ray said: “No, I have not received any such feelers yet.”
“I have to decide, thoroughly introspect on my future. I could either continue this way, or quit as a Rajya Sabha member, or retire from politics entirely,” Ray added.