Trinamool Congress leader in Lok Sabha Abhishek Banerjee on Friday met with Speaker Om Birla and submitted 20 petitions against its 20 rebel MPs, seeking their disqualification.
Talking to the media after meeting the speaker, Banerjee said the rebel MPs, who have claimed to join the lesser-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), should be disqualified from the membership of the House on the ground of leaving the party.
"Twenty people met the speaker and claimed they should be treated as a separate group. Later, we got to know those MPs claimed to have joined another party, NCPI; nobody has heard the name of this group. Even they had not heard the name of this party," Banerjee said.
He said the 10th Schedule of the Constitution is clear that if a member voluntarily gives up their membership of a party, they are disqualified as MPs.
"So if (they) have been elected on a symbol and (are) claiming after two years that they are joining a new party, their membership should go," he said.
He also said that the rule on two-thirds of the members merging with another party applies to the whole party, and not just the legislative party.
"Based on that I, as a leader of Lok Sabha of TMC, have submitted 20 different disqualification petitions against those MPs," he said.
Abhishek Banerjee said the political developments over the last one-and-a-half months, including what he described as attempts to “break” the party not just in Bengal but also in Maharashtra, reflect a larger pattern. He alleged that there was an effort to “change the Constitution at any cost” and questioned the trust in democratic processes.
“The politics of the last one-and-a-half month, the way the party is being broken apart, not just in Bengal, but also in Maharashtra, shows that clearly. They want to change the Constitution at any cost," news agency PTI reported.
“They do not trust the people at all. They know that if people vote in a truly democratic manner, the BJP can never win. That is why they have used the Election Commission, the Enforcement Directorate, the CBI, and every other agency to manipulate the people's mandate,” he said.
“..We have presented our case before the Speaker and requested him to take action on the matter as soon as possible and hear both sides.”
He added that according to the Constitution, the rebel MPs are wrong.
“If you go by the Constitution or the judgments of the Supreme Court, it clearly goes against them. This is clearly mentioned in the Constitution. So either the Constitution is wrong, or they are wrong. One of the two has to be wrong... Whether we go to court or explore any legal remedies is a hypothetical question at this stage, but we have left the matter to the judgment and wisdom of the Speaker. He has said that he will hear the other side as well and then call us again for another meeting. We hope that, having been shown all the relevant constitutional provisions, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha will act in accordance with the Constitution and not undermine it. That is all I can hope for.”
The move comes after Birla invited the TMC Lok Sabha leader to present his views on the issue before a decision was made on a demand by 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs to recognise them as a separate group following their merger with the NCPI.
Abhishek also wrote to the speaker last week, urging him not to accord any recognition, status or facility to any group claiming to be a separate faction of the All India Trinamool Congress, contending that the Constitution and the anti-defection law do not permit the formation of a separate group within an existing political party.
