Trinamool Congress Crisis Deepens, Dissidents to Meet Speaker Birla Today…
NEW DELHI : Grappling with internal discord, the Trinamool Congress wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla today, stating that the dissident faction of MPs wishing to support the NDA cannot be granted recognition; the political party remains paramount, not the legislative party.
In the letter, Abhishek Banerjee—the Trinamool’s second-in-command and head of the parliamentary party—wrote: “The AITC must be treated as a single political party, represented in the House solely through its authorized leader and whip. No recognition, status, or facility should be granted to any alleged separate faction or splinter group of the AITC.” He further asserted, “The AITC is a single, indivisible political party.” The letter states that the existence of a legislative party derives from the political party itself, of which it is a component; no member or group of members can unilaterally form a parallel faction or splinter group of the same party or claim independent recognition within the House.
This demand was made by a dissident faction comprising 20 MPs. Earlier this week, they had written to the Speaker seeking recognition as a separate faction within the party. Trinamool legislators had previously rejected the party’s official choice for the Leader of the Opposition, securing recognition from the Speaker for expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee instead of the party’s nominee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay. Abhishek Banerjee argued that the Supreme Court has established clear boundaries regarding such matters.
Banerjee wrote, “The law does not view the splitting of a political party into competing factions as an acceptable occurrence.” He added that such conduct is instead viewed through the lens of disqualification. “The Speaker recognizes the political party, not rival factions.” The Court stated that when two or more factions claim to be the political party, the Speaker—while adjudicating disqualification petitions under Paragraph 2(1) of the Tenth Schedule—must determine which is the genuine political party. Thus, the process is about identifying the real political party, not about granting separate recognition to a faction. The dissident faction led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claimed today that their numbers had risen by two. “We spoke to those who were expressing dissatisfaction with the situation in West Bengal. One or two more people will join us. Earlier, I had mentioned 20; now the number has reached 22,” she told reporters in Kolkata before flying to Delhi. “Everyone’s opinion will be heard. There will be discussion, not dictatorship.” “There will be discussion, not dictatorship,” he said. However, he did not disclose the names of the new MPs. He stated that the Speaker would meet the rebels tomorrow.
Meanwhile, a dissident faction comprising 20 Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MPs is set to join the ‘Nationalist Citizens Party,’ a lesser-known, Bengali-centric political party based in Tripura. Announcing this today, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is leading the dissident group, stated that they would sit separately in Parliament and “work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” This move will further deepen the crisis within the Trinamool, which has 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha. It will also significantly reduce the opposition’s strength in the Lower House ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
Earlier today, Trinamool’s Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghosh met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and handed over a letter from Abhishek Banerjee—the party’s number-two leader and head of the parliamentary party. The letter urged the Speaker not to recognize the dissident faction, arguing that the political party is paramount, not the legislative party.The letter stated, “The existence of a legislative party in the Lok Sabha derives from the political party itself, and it is an integral part of the same… No member or group of members can unilaterally form a parallel group or faction of the same party, nor can they claim independent recognition within the House.”
