Overview
- On Sunday a group of 20 Lok Sabha MPs elected on the Trinamool Congress ticket, led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, met Speaker Om Birla and submitted a letter seeking recognition for a merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
- The Speaker has invited representatives of the Mamata Banerjee‑led TMC to present their case and says he will hear both factions before deciding whether to grant the rebel group separate recognition in the House.
- TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has formally opposed any separate recognition in a letter to the Speaker and was unable to attend the initial meeting because he was undergoing prolonged questioning by the Enforcement Directorate and West Bengal CID.
- The rebel MPs argue their move meets the Tenth Schedule’s two‑thirds merger test and so should avoid disqualification, a legal claim that would, if accepted, reduce TMC’s Lok Sabha numbers and is likely to face judicial scrutiny if contested.
- State politics are shifting in parallel: Mamata Banerjee has filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court challenging her Bhabanipur defeat, the new BJP government has dissolved the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and announced fresh municipal elections by December, and opposition parties have accused the Centre of engineering the split.