Sudip Bandyopadhyay, senior Trinamool MP and long-time Mamata Banerjee loyalist, on Saturday emerged as what was widely believed to be the 20th Lok Sabha member to join the party’s rebel camp.
After his afternoon flight landed in Delhi, the 77-year-old drove straight to Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav’s residence, accompanied by rebel Birbhum MP Satabdi Roy.
In the evening, he met Union home minister Amit Shah, which many saw as confirmation that he had joined the rebel camp.
Yadav’s residence has, since early this week, become the huddle point for the Trinamool dissidents, who are believed to have signed a document formally registering their membership of a breakaway group backing the NDA.
The rebels, led by Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, claimed to have already secured the signatures of 19 of Trinamool’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs. Sudip’s, if he joins them, will be the 20th.
However, Mamata loyalists claim the number of rebels is fewer than the 19 required to escape disqualification under the anti-defection law. Several of those named as rebels by the grapevine have denied the claim.
Neither Sudip nor Satabdi spoke to reporters after emerging from Yadav’s home. BJP sources claimed that Sudip, the Kolkata North MP, had signed the document backing the rebel camp.
“Sudipda’s name was already on the list, but he took his time to put down his signature,” a BJP leader said.
A crossover by Sudip would be a double blow to Mamata, since his wife and Trinamool MLA Nayana Bandyopadhyay would then be expected to join the breakaway group led by Ritabrata Banerjee in the Bengal Assembly.
The rebel MPs are to meet in Delhi on Sunday, with Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari likely to be present, before jointly calling on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday. They are expected to seek recognition as a distinct parliamentary bloc — most likely as the “real TMC” — with a separate seating arrangement in the House.
Suvendu, during a felicitation ceremony in Ballygunge on Saturday evening, said: "Such a day has come that a (TMC) leader from north Calcutta is roaming around Delhi. No one is there. Everything (of the TMC) is finished, even within a month. The people uprooted a government that was running with such arrogance, aided by the torture of goons and the police, coupled with appeasement." A BJP leader said that Suvendu meant Sudip without naming him.
Constitutional experts have, however, warned that the anti-defection law no longer recognises splinter or breakaway groups, and the rebels’ only protection from disqualification is to merge themselves into the BJP.
Sudip, a six-time MP and four-time MLA, had joined the Congress in the 1970s and been with Trinamool since its foundation in 1998. He, however, left the party over differences with Mamata in 2004 only to return four years later. He was a Union minister in the UPA government when Trinamool was part of the alliance.
The rebel MPs and BJP strategists believe that Sudip’s entry would lend greater weight to the breakaway group given his stature within the party.
Sudip had served as Trinamool’s leader in the Lok Sabha from 2014 until last year, when Mamata replaced him with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. He had since then maintained a low profile and was only occasionally seen in Parliament.
Party insiders said he was deeply upset at his removal as the parliamentary party leader, which is believed to have contributed to his decision to join the rebel camp.
Sources indicated that Sudip could now replace Kakoli as the leader of the breakaway group, a possibility fraught with internal tensions.
Kakoli has repeatedly highlighted how she had worked alongside Mamata since 1984, basing her claim to rebel leadership on, ironically, her long association with the person she was rebelling against. Some within the camp fear that Sudip’s seniority and stature could complicate the leadership dynamics.