- Rebel Trinamool MPs said they will merge with Nationalist Citizens Party from Tripura
- The rebels said they will sit separately and support PM Narendra Modi within NDA in Lok Sabha
- Trinamool's strength in the Lok Sabha will drop from 28 to 8 after the split
The 20-strong rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress's Lok Sabha MPs will merge with the Nationalist Citizens' Party -- a little-known political party from Bengal that made its electoral debut from Tripura and failed to make any impact. Making the announcement today after meeting Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and submitting their letter, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is leading the rebel faction, said they will sit separately in parliament. "We command two-thirds majority. We will be part of the NDA and work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," she added.
The move will deepen the crisis within the Trinamool -- which has 28 MPs in Lok Sabha -- and drastically bring down the Opposition numbers in the lower house ahead of the Monsoon session of parliament.
Read: Bengal MPs Think Long Term, Next Big Move In July, Hints Newest Rebel
Sources said the decision was taken to avoid legal complications that inevitably come up in forming a separate bloc.
Trinamool's Sudip Bandyopadhyay, a close aide of party chief and former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was one of the the last MPs to cross over to the rebel group, said: "We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party... It is a regional party".
This is the system, he said. "When you leave with two-thirds of the party, you cannot demand the name of that party on the first day... In July, we will make a demand to give us the Trinamool (name) since we have two-thirds majority from Trinamool. Then the court will decide," he added.
What Trinamool Said
The rebel group has "betrayed the Trinamool," said senior Trinamool leader Madan Mitra.
"They had contested the election under the Trinamool symbol, saying they want to strengthen the party under Mamata Banerjee's leadership. Now they have moved away from the promise. That's deceit," he added.
Read: After Rebel Bloc's Big Merger Announcement, Trinamool's "Betrayal" Jab
Asked if the Trinamool will take the matter to court, he said that depends on Mamata Banerjee. Pointed out that they have the two-thirds majority, Mitra said, "It is too small a number to form a separate party. There are lots of processes. This is just the beginning".
Trinamool Moved First Today
Earlier today, Trinamool's Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad met Om Birla to submit a letter from party number two and its parliamentary party chief Abhishek Banerjee, which urged him not to accept the rebel bloc since it is always the political party and not the Legislature Party that stands supreme.
"The legislative Party in the Lok Sabha derives its very existence from and remains an emanation of the political party... No member or set of members can, by their own volition, carve out a parallel group or faction of the same party and claim independent recognition within the House," the letter read.
Quoting a relevant order from the court, the letter said, "The law does not recognise the splintering of a political party into competing groups as a permissible event". Instead, it treats such conduct through the lens of disqualification, Abhishek Banerjee had added.
"The Speaker recognises the political party, not rival factions. The court held that where two or more factions claim to be the political party, the Speaker is to determine, prima facie, who the political party is for the purpose of adjudicating disqualification petitions under Paragraph 2(1) of the Tenth Schedule. The framework thus contemplates ascertainment of the one true political party -- not the conferral of independent recognition upon a faction," the letter read.
