New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will hear the defected TMC MPs as well as the faction led by Mamata Banerjee before deciding on giving recognition to the breakaway faction, sources said.
Meanwhile, sources from the Mamata-led TMC said that on Monday, its leader Abhishek Banerjee was called for a meeting with Birla at a two-hour notice when he was still being questioned by the ED.
TMC sources said Banerjee got an email from the speaker’s office at around 2 pm on Monday, asking him to meet Birla at 4 pm. Soon after, the speaker’s office called party MP Kirti Azad and told him about the email.
Also ReadTMC leader Abhishek Banerjee appears before ED
Azad, in response, informed the speaker’s office that Banerjee was “committed to cooperating with all investigative agencies” and was cooperating with the investigation at the ED office in CGO complex in Kolkata, sources said.
Later in the day, Azad also met the speaker to inform him about the email.
The sources added that Banerjee returned after questioning only around midnight.
The communication came as around 20 TMC MPs announced they were merging with the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) and said they would later stake claim to be recognised as the “real TMC”.
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 speaker’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.
He told PTI 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.
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