Mamata Banerjee with Sangma in New Delhi on Saturday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, March 13: The Purno A. Sangma faction of the Nationalist Congress Party today merged with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress to form the Nationalist Trinamul Congress.

The new party will be headed by Mamata and will retain the Trinamul’s “flower with grass” symbol. Candidates belonging to Sangma’s party will contest in the Northeast under the Trinamul symbol.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sangma lost the NCP’s “clock” symbol last week after the Election Commission recognised the Sharad Pawar faction as the real NCP.

Mamata and Sangma announced the merger at a joint news conference here in the presence of Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio. The chief minister is chairman of the North-East People’s Forum which has aligned with the National Democratic Alliance.

The new party downplayed the foreign origins of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, an issue on which Sangma parted ways with Pawar.

Banerjee sidestepped questions on whether she endorsed Sangma’s views on Sonia’s origins, saying: “We do not want him to change his stand (on the issue).”

Sangma added: “There is no difference of opinion between me and her (Mamata) on any issue.”

He denied going “soft” on the foreign origin issue, saying if this were so he would not have broken away from the Congress in 1999 to form the NCP or parted company with Pawar, who has allied with Sonia in Maharashtra.

“It is the core issue on which there is no compromise,” Sangma said, adding it was not necessary to talk about the same thing all 24 hours.

Terming the merger historic, Mamata said it would strengthen the Northeast. Sangma said the Nationalist Trinamul Congress would have the support of the North-East People’s Forum and “we will put up as many candidates as possible in the region”.

Rio said the Forum would campaign for the NDA in the Northeast.