New Delhi, 16 June— A bizarre situation developed when Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla reportedly gave Trinamool Congress MP and General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee a tight 2-hour deadline to present his case before deciding on the rebel faction’s request for merger with little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) even though the TMC leader was being interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate.
Possible unaware that the TMC leader was being questioned by the ED, the Speaker’s office sent an email to Banerjee at 2 pm on June 15, asking him to appear at 4 pm, Trinamool leader said.
The sources added that Abhishek returned after questioning only around midnight.
However, when the email was sent to the TMC leader, he was appearing before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and didn’t have access to his mobile phone, sources pointed out.
Around 3 pm, the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office called TMC leader Kirti Azad to inform him about the scheduled meeting.
Azad then went to the Speaker’s office and informed that Abhishek Banerjee would not be able to attend the meeting since he was being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the 2023 teacher recruitment scam.
He further requested a new date and time for the meeting, and reiterated that Banerjee would “fully cooperate” with the Speaker’s office.
The Speaker is expected to speak to both sides before deliberating on the rebel faction’s merger request, which has triggered a fresh legal and political tug-of-war within the TMC.
While the rebels seek recognition for their move, the TMC leadership has moved to protect its flock and challenge the validity of the request.
Earlier on Sunday, 20 rebel MPs, led by veteran TMC leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, met Speaker Birla at his residence in New Delhi.
They handed the Speaker a letter informing him about their decision to merge with a Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) and requesting to be considered a separate bloc from the original TMC. Their decision to merge with the NCPI which does not have a parliamentary recognition or representation in Parliament has put the rebel MPs group in a legal bind.
Earlier, sources from Parliament said Birla is likely to seek legal opinion on the defected leaders’ demand to be recognised as a separate group after a proposed merger with the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
Any decision on the group’s demand will be taken before the Monsoon Session of Parliament, which usually commences in the third week of July, they said.
A decision on whether the breakaway faction gets the recognition will be based on the written opinion of the Union Law Ministry, which will give it after consulting a senior law officer.
The legal opinion will be sought so that the SA hilarious peaker’s decision, if challenged in court, can withstand judicial scrutiny, sources said.
Former secretary general of the Lok Sabha and constitutional expert PDT Achary cited paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution to underline that only a political party can merge with another political party, not MPs or MLAs.
Achary told media that if the leadership of a political party decides to merge with another political party, its MLAs and MPs have to agree on the merger “but MPs or the MLAs alone cannot merge with another political party… this is the Constitutional provision.”
A former Election Commission officer, who dealt with political parties in the poll authority, described the current plan of the TMC rebels to merge with the NCPI as an “innovation” that has no mention in either the anti-defection law or the Representation of the People Act.
The crisis in the TMC deepened on Sunday as the defected MPs announced their merger with the NCPI and met Birla seeking a separate seating arrangement in the Lower House.
After the meeting, defected MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said 20 party MPs had signed the representation submitted to the speaker.
“Two-thirds of TMC MPs have given a letter to the speaker for a separate seating arrangement. We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party and support the NDA,” she said.
The NCPI registered itself as a political party in January 2023, with a building in Sankarail in West Bengal’s Howrah district as its address in the ECI records and has little footprint in national politics.
Veteran Journalist and Political Commentator
