NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee Friday met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to submit a disqualification petitions against party MPs who have sought to merge with the lesser-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).Banerjee, who is former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, said he submitted around 20 petitions involving relevant judgements and media reports. “I can only present my side before him, and I have done that. I submitted the disqualification petitions that I showed you. Around 20 such petitions have been submitted. All our prayers are included in these petitions, and all relevant judgments have been cited. Each petition is 21 pages long. We have also attached all the media reports that came to our notice and submitted them along with the petitions”, he told news agency PTI after the meeting. Expressing hope that Lok Sabha Om Birla would “act in accordance with the Constitution,” Banerjee said: “The Lok Sabha Speaker is the custodian of the House, not the protector of the government of the day. Every citizen, especially elected representatives, must work within the ambit of the law. Therefore, one has to function according to the provisions laid down in the Constitution.”In a dramatic development, 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs informed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that their group has merged with NCPI, which is registered in West Bengal’s Howrah and had contested a few seats in the 2023 Tripura assembly elections, and that they will be backing the BJP-led NDA.Incidentally, “to save your rights, reject political turncoats” was one of the slogans of NCPI. The merger will make the little-known party the second-biggest bloc (20 Lok Sabha members) in the governing alliance, after BJP (240), and ahead of TDP (16) and JDU (12). The rebels asked Birla to allot them seats with the treasury benches, as they were seated with opposition parties in Parliament till now as members of TMC.Sudip Bandyopadhyay, who as a sixth-term MP is the most experienced member of the breakaway bloc, also left open the possibility of going to Election Commission to stake claim as “real TMC”.After the meeting with Speaker Om Birla, Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the merger was guided by demands of the anti-defection law (Tenth Schedule of Constitution).The law does not recognise a split, a point stressed by Supreme Court in its 2022 judgment in the case of division in Shiv Sena as well, but makes an exception for merger of two-thirds of members of one party with another party. With 20 MPs, the TMC dissidents have one MP more than the required two-thirds figure as TMC has 28 members in Lok Sabha.NCPI is a registered unrecognised party with EC, one of 2,049 that have not been able to cross the threshold of poll performance needed to get recognised.The rebel MPs earlier met at the residence of Union minister Bhupender Yadav and were joined by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who played a crucial role in breaking TMC.Sources said 19 MPs were physically present while one member has pledged her support, indicating that more TMC Rajya Sabha members may resign in the coming days. Three have quit so far.
