The Trinamool Congress minus Mamata Banerjee returned to the NDA fold after over 20 years on Monday with 20 of its Lok Sabha MPs pledging support to the BJP-led alliance in the Lower House, splitting the parliamentary party.
Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar confirmed via a text message that 20 Lok Sabha MPs have written to Speaker Om Birla about their decision to support the NDA.
On May 20, Ghosh Dastidar was replaced by Serampore MP Kalyan Bandyopadhyay as the chief whip of the Trinamool in Lok Sabha.
"The letter appointing Kalyan Bandyopadhyay as chief whip was sent last month. In the current scenario, Kakoli's letter has no value. Where is the letter written by the so-called rebels? They don't have two-third numbers," said a Trinamool MP.
"The MPs who have revolted against Mamata have held a meeting in Delhi. I don't know how many of them have revolted. If they have given a letter, what can we do? There is nothing much to say," Sougata Roy, the Trinamool's Dum Dum MP, told The Telegraph Online.
Sources said Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Saayoni Ghosh and Mahua Moitra were among the MPs who did not attend the rebel meet.
That meeting took place at the home of Bhupender Yadav, the architect of the BJP's triumph in the Bengal Assembly polls, in the presence of chief minister Suvendu Adhikari and former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb.
Last week around 58 MLAs rebelled against Mamata and chose a leader of Opposition of their choice, first-time MLA Ritabrata Banerjee, in the Assembly.
Soon after his elevation, Ritabrata declared that the Trinamool MLAs will continue to fight against the BJP and the Suvendu Adhikari government in the state.
The Delhi rebels, on the other hand, have sided with the BJP.
The contradictory stand taken by the rebels in Bengal and Delhi is in sync with a dichotomy that has always been associated with the Trinamool since its inception: its stand on the BJP.
In 1998, after Mamata formed the Trinamool Congress, when the party was yet to acquire the ‘All India’ tag, the party had won seven Lok Sabha seats in Bengal pushing the Congress behind and become Bengal's main opposition party. A year later, after the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata joined the NDA and became the railway minister.
Since then Mamata has been in and out of the national alliances led by the Congress and the BJP more than once.
As of Monday evening there are three distinct Trinamool groups and among them two claim to be the "real" Trinamool.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, the leader of the rebel Trinamool MPs, is yet to respond to whether she and her 19 colleagues who have joined hands with the BJP represent the real Trinamool.
Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee were in Delhi to attend a meeting of the Opposition INDIA bloc to chalk strategy against the BJP both inside and outside Parliament.
The third claimant to the real Trinamool tag is in the Bengal Assembly as the main opposition party to take on the Suvendu Adhikari government.
The Trinamool, till the split, had 28 members in the Lok Sabha (the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat is vacant following the death of sitting Trinamool MP Haji Nurul Islam) and 12 in the Rajya Sabha. That made the party the second-largest opposition party in Parliament. The numbers gave Mamata the heft to throw punches at the Congress, both nationally and locally.
Now, the rebel MPs’ group includes old Mamata acolytes like Ghosh Dastidar and Satabdi Roy, as well as first-timers like Sharmila Sarkar, the MP from Bardhaman Purba.
Earlier on Monday before the Lok Sabha rebellion, Trinamool's Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resigned as an MP and also from the party.
Till the party was in power in Bengal, Trinamool leaders in Delhi and Kolkata always cited the numbers to announce its strength as a key member in the opposition alliance.
Monday's developments took away that bragging point from Mamata and the leaders who still are close to her.
While the rebels were making their moves in Delhi, former Kolkata mayor and Mamata confidante Firhad Hakim met Ritabrata Banerjee at the Bengal Assembly, fuelling speculation of more Trinamool MLAs crossing over to join the rebels.
After resigning from the Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray said the Trinamool leadership made no attempt to introspect into the reasons behind the Assembly election defeat.
"I was pushed to a corner. The Trinamool was formed with the objective to defeat the CPM. It had no ideology. Once that objective was realised there was no other mooring. Corruption was institutionalised," Ray told the media.
Ray also met Bhupender Yadav at his residence after resigning from the Rajya Sabha where Trinamool's Lok Sabha rebels had also come for a meeting.
"When he reached some Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs were present. He spent some 30-40 minutes with Bhupender ji and then left," said a source.
"The MPs won in 2024 on TMC tickets. Mandate was not for NDA. All the greedy self-serving traitors with yellow-stained pants can please join BJP now - resign your seats and contest on BJP ticket. Let's see what big heroes you are," Mahua Moitra, the Krishnagar Trinamool MP, posted on X.
The legal battle that could have a bearing on which faction gets to carry the party's name and symbol has started.
Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, the Ballygunge Trinamool MLA and Mamata's choice as leader of Opposition in the Assembly, has moved Calcutta High Court challenging Ritabrata's appointment.