The rebel lawmakers of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) are set to merge with a little known Tripura-based Nationalist Citizen Party of India.
Led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, the 20 Trinamool Congress, including Saayoni Ghosh and Yusuf Pathan, met with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at his residence in New Delhi.
They informed him about their decision to merge with the NCPI and requested him to recognise them as a separate bloc. The speaker verified their signatures and reportedly accepted their request to merge with the NCPI.
Speaking to mediapersons after meeting the Speaker, Dastidar said, “We, the twenty MPs elected from the AITC, met the Speaker and submitted a letter requesting to sit separately; these twenty MPs constitute more than two-thirds of our total strength.”
He further announced the merger of the 20 dissidents with the Nationalist Citizens Party and join the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We are merging with the Nationalist Citizens Party. Moving forward, we will work for the nation and collaborate with the NDA under the leadership of the Prime Minister.”
Another TMC rebel MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay also confirmed the development. The former Mamata Banerjee loyalist further said that the rebels will claim the name and symbol of the TMC in July.
“We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party… It is a regional party. This is the system. When you leave with 2/3rd of the party, you cannot demand the name of that party on the first day itself. In July, we will make a demand to give us Trinamool since we have 2/3rd majority from Trinamool. Then the court will decide…,” he said.
On the rebel faction’s meeting with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, he said, “Om Birla verified all the signatures. There were 20 signatures. It is 2/3rd now…”
Minutes before their meeting with Birla, the Mamata Banerjee-led faction wrote to the Speaker, asking him to “decline to accord any recognition, status, or facility to any purported separate group or faction of the AITC.”
In the letter, written by Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the TMC sought an “opportunity of being heard before any decision is taken” if the rebel group wants to be recongnized as a seperate group of faction of the AITC.