The rebellion in the Trinamool Congress appeared to reach a crescendo on Sunday as dissident MPs announced their merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party and met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking a separate seating arrangement in the House, while Mamata Banerjee’s party dismissing the move as "ridiculous", and the saffron camp described it as evidence of TMC's deepening crisis.
Speaking to reporters after meeting the Speaker, rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claimed that two-thirds of the TMC's Lok Sabha members had submitted a letter seeking recognition as a separate group.
"Two-thirds MPs of TMC 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.
Senior TMC leader and Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the dissident camp had already merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party, which he described as a regional party.
The Nationalist Citizens Party is a lesser-known registered, unrecognised party from Tripura.
Asked about the competing claim of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction, Bandyopadhyay said the issue of who constitutes the "real TMC" would be decided by the courts, and added that they would claim the party's electoral symbol of two flowers.
"Court will decide later who is the real TMC. We met the Speaker and gave him our request," he said.
Senior TMC MP Sougata Roy ridiculed the rebels' decision to merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India, a Tripura-based registered unrecognised party, questioning both its political relevance and the dissidents' ability to justify the move before voters.
"Once you betray the party on whose symbol you were elected, how will you face your constituents? This merger is ridiculous. Who knows NCPI? Can they go to their constituencies and tell people that they are now part of NCPI? This merger reflects the desperation of the traitors to please their BJP masters," Roy told PTI.
BJP state spokesperson Sayantan Basu said the development was an internal matter of the TMC and that the party leadership should introspect instead of blaming others.
"If they join the NCPI and support the NDA and government bills, it is good for the country. The fact is that no one wants to remain in the TMC. Its leadership should do serious introspection instead of blaming others," he told PTI.
The development came as TMC leaders Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghosh also met Speaker Birla on Sunday and submitted a letter by TMC Lok Sabha leader Abhishek Banerjee, urging him not to accord any recognition to any purported separate faction, arguing that the Constitution does not permit the formation of a separate group within an existing political party.
The letter dated June 10, which was sent through email earlier, said that the anti-defection law does not permit such a split.
