At least 22 of Trinamool’s 28 MPs could break away and stake claim as the “real TMC” early next week, around the time Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee reach Delhi for an INDIA bloc meeting.

The dissidents are said to be led by Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.

“Yes, phone calls are being made. They are being made by Trinamool (MPs) to us,” BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said in Delhi.

“Trinamool is now a thing of the past. In the near future, it will be reduced to a small chapter of Islamic history,” the Rajya Sabha member added.

Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari is also in Delhi.

BJP state general secretary Locket Chatterjee said: “Many are in touch, constant touch now. Especially since the (May 4) results. Texts, WhatsApp... calls, what not.”

“They want to switch sides, what else?” she laughed when asked what this communication was about.

To bypass the anti-defection law under the Tenth Schedule, a rebel faction requires a two-thirds majority. Trinamool, the third-largest party in Parliament after the BJP and the Congress, currently has 28 Lok Sabha members following the death of Basirhat MP Haji Nurul Islam and 13 Rajya Sabha members.

For a Calcutta-like operation, where 58 of the party’s 80 MLAs have broken away, a rebel group in Parliament will need the support of around 19 Lok Sabha and 9 Rajya Sabha members.

“All calculations are getting mixed up,” said Trinamool’s Sreerampur MP Kalyan Banerjee, who remains a Mamata loyalist.

Sources in the Calcutta rebel bloc said the number — both Houses of Parliament combined — now stood at 22.

“They are going to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and possibly Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan on Monday and say they are the real Trinamool. Tragically for Kalighat, when Pishi-Bhaipo are in the national capital... expect fireworks,” said a core constituent of the bloc who is known for his proximity to both Kakoli and Ritabrata Banerjee, the leader of the 58 rebel MLAs in Calcutta.

Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha veteran Sukhendu Sekhar Ray told this newspaper that a parliamentary break-up was “inevitable”.

“Only a matter of time now,” he said, basing his statement on conversations in Delhi with his colleagues — whom he refused to name.

Throughout Friday afternoon and evening, this newspaper attempted to contact 16 Trinamool MPs. The cellphones of 15 remained switched off. The 16 include entertainers, former sportspersons, first-time MPs and at least three who were fierce Mamata loyalists even until earlier this week. Three of them decided to join this lot after being turned away by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, sources said.

Kakoli’s was the only phone that rang, but without answer.

On X, Kakoli defended her political achievements and four-decade history of fighting “autocracy” under Mamata, rejecting any narrative of self-interest. Instead, she leaned on combative literary and historical provocations to signal a fight to the finish.

Kakoli weaponised an image of former US President Woodrow Wilson with his quote on the inevitability of making enemies when pushing for change, reinforced it with Charles Mackay’s poetic verses mockingly challenging those without foes as having achieved nothing, and capped the salvo with a stark, blunt ultimatum: “Don’t stir hornet’s nest.”

The atmosphere was captured precisely by none other than Bengal’s newly minted leader of the Opposition, Ritabrata.

“Today, I needed something, so I called up five MPs, and everyone’s phone was switched off. Each of them has two phones, and all of them were switched off. Simultaneously. Make of that what you will,” he said, refusing to comment on claims from multiple reliable sources that he has been in regular touch with the parliamentary rebel bloc as well.

Asked if the switched-off phones meant they are all in a huddle, Ritabrata said: “I can’t tell you the reason.”

“If I get to speak with any of the MPs, I will try to understand what exactly is brewing in Delhi,” he said, quickly adding a cryptic footnote: “Look, fear is contagious. But so is courage.”

Faced with total institutional erasure, Mamata convened an emergency meeting of her “national working committee” at 30B Harish Chatterjee Street. She named loyalists Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen as new national joint secretaries to shore up national general secretary Abhishek’s crumbling flank, while Chandrima Bhattacharya became the new state president. Loyalist muscle was redistributed across the frontals, placing Madan Mitra over the hawkers’ wing and Moloy Ghatak at the helm of the labour arm (which Ritabrata used to head).

Mamata is said to have begun preparing to move Calcutta High Court to challenge Speaker Rathindra Bose’s recognition of Ritabrata and his rebel bloc in the Assembly.