The plan of the Trinamool Congress rebel MPs to merge with the little-known NCPI was an "innovation" that has no mention in either the anti-defection law or the Representation of the People Act, a former Election Commission officer told PTI even as other sources told the news agency that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla would hear the defected MPs and the faction led by Mamata Banerjee both before deciding on giving recognition to the breakaway lot.
The Speaker's office has also sent an email to the Mamata-led faction – reduced to a rump – seeking its view, the sources said.
Earlier, Parliament sources said Birla was likely to seek legal opinion on the defected leaders' demand to be recognised as a separate group after a proposed merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
Any decision on the group's demand will be taken before the Monsoon Session of Parliament, which usually commences in the third week of July, they said.
A decision on whether the breakaway faction gets the recognition will be based on the written opinion of the Union law ministry, which will give it after consulting a senior law officer, the sources told PTI.
The legal opinion will be sought so that the Speaker's decision, if challenged in court, can withstand judicial scrutiny.
Former secretary general of the Lok Sabha and constitutional expert PDT Achary cited paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution to underline that only a political party can merge with another political party, not MPs or MLAs.
He told PTI that if the leadership of a political party decides to merge with another political party, its MLAs and MPs have to agree on the merger "but MPs or the MLAs alone cannot merge with another political party... this is the constitutional provision."
The crisis in the TMC deepened on Sunday as the defected MPs announced their merger with the NCPI and met Birla seeking a separate seating arrangement in the Lower House.
After the meeting, defected MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said 20 party MPs had signed the representation submitted to the speaker.
"Two-thirds of TMC MPs have given a letter to the speaker for a separate seating arrangement. We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party and support the NDA," she said.
The NCPI registered itself as a political party in January 2023, with a building in Sankarail in Bengal's Howrah district as its address in the ECI records and has little footprint in national politics.