New Delhi/Kolkata: Twenty rebel Trinamool MPs informed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Sunday that they will merge with a relatively unknown party from Tripura— Nationalist Citizens’ Party of India (NCPI) — and urged him to allot them a separate sitting block in Lok Sabha along with the NDA parties.The merger will make NCPI, whose slogan was “To save your rights, reject political turncoats”, the fourth biggest party in LS. The party, registered in Howrah, is now poised to emerge as the second-biggest bloc (20 LS members) in NDA after BJP (240), and ahead of TDP (16) and JDU (12).The rebels’ decision to merge with another party, instead of staking claim to Trinamool’s name and symbol despite having a two-thirds majority in LS (20 out of 28 MPs), seems to be aimed at circumventing potential legal hurdles before the monsoon session of Parliament, which starts next month. The rebel bloc, however, has not abandoned its plan to stake claim to the name ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ and its symbol.NCPI’s support will take NDA’s tally to 313 as part of what is being seen as BJP’s all-out efforts to attain the two-thirds mark of 361 in LS after its lack of super majority led to the fall of its bill to amend women reservation law and push delimitation to raise House seats from 543 to 850 in Parliament’s last session.The Mamata Banerjee camp, desperate to prevent a split, sent two of its MPs — Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad — to the Speaker half an hour before the rebel MPs called on him. Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad stressed during their meeting with Speaker that Trinamool was a “single, indivisible political party” and cited Supreme Court’s order in 2022 in the case of division in Shiv Sena to argue that “recognition as a separate group or faction of Trinamool is unknown to law and impermissible”. Their letter to the Speaker also said the party had the right to be heard before any decision was made and reserved its right to challenge it.The law does not recognise a split but makes exception for merger of two-thirds members of one party with another.Rebel MP Arup Chakraborty indicated that first-time MP Saayoni Ghosh will be their floor leader. “Saayoni Ghosh is our leader. Under the leadership of Bengal’s CM, our double-engine govt wants to work for the interest of the nation…. If BJP asks for our help, we will help them. If we want their help, we will ask for it.”Sudip suggested that merging with NCPI was a stopgap measure. However, this was not immediately corroborated by Kakoli. “These 20 MPs constitute more than two-thirds of our strength (in LS). We are merging with Nationalist Citizens’ Party. Moving forward, we will work for the nation and collaborate with NDA under the leadership of the PM.”According to some sources, there was disquiet in the rebel camp — even during their meeting at Union minister Bhupender Yadav’s Delhi residence — about staking claim to Trinamool’s name and symbol. While Saayoni, June Malia, Mitali Bag and a few others wanted to quit Trinamool, the camp led by Kakoli and supported by Satabdi Roy was in favour of requesting the Speaker to recognise them as the real Trinamool. A third, much smaller group, wanted Mamata Banerjee to be the rebel bloc’s adviser.
