Twenty lawmakers from the Trinamool Congress on Sunday declared to the Lok Sabha Speaker that they would merge with another party and support the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the House.
The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC is staring at a crisis following the party’s defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections last month. At least 58 of its MLAs have rebelled and formed a separate bloc in the West Bengal Assembly, choosing expelled party leader Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition.
In the Lok Sabha, 20 rebel party MPs merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India, or NCPI, a party not many are aware of, and one which has come into the spotlight after the Trinamool leaders’ decision to join it.
A BJP MP involved in the discussions told HT that NCPI was selected to preserve the rebels’ connection to West Bengal while extending a symbolic reach to the Northeast.
What do we know about the NCPI?
Trinamool MPs including Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, former floor leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Shatabdi Roy, and a cross-section of the party’s Lok Sabha contingent that included actors Deepak Adhikari, Saayoni Ghosh and June Malia, former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, and former Indian football captain Prasun Banerjee, are among the leaders who have presented letters to the Lok Sabha Speaker to merge with the NCPI.
The Tripura-based NCPI is an obscure party, which does not hold a single elected representative or seat anywhere in India. Bandopadhyay, one of the rebel MPs, said the NCPI is a “recognised regional party”. The party, registered in 2022, last contested elections in 2023, wherein it fielded four candidates in the Tripura assembly elections.
These four seats were Chawamanu, Ambassa, Karamchara and Kailashahar. However, its candidates finished behind NOTA, with some securing a few more votes. With the TMC MPs merging with it, the NCPI’s slogan is now in the limelight, ANI news agency reported. It says ‘reject political turncoats to save your rights’.
While contesting its last elections, the party’s campaign posters had carried the message: “To save your rights, reject political turncoats. Support social workers, not political personalities.”
The party’s symbol was a pen nib, which had reportedly been allotted to it as a Registered Unrecognised Political Party.
A Registered Unrecognised Political Party (RUPP) is a political organisation officially registered with the Election Commission of India (ECI) under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. However, it is “unrecognised” as it may not have met the strict electoral vote criteria required to be elevated to a “state” or a “national” party.
How did the NCPI founder react to the merger?
NCPI founder and national organising secretary Shantanu Dey, while speaking to ANI, expressed willigness to engage and discuss further plans with the MPs who had merged with the party. While stating that he was not previously aware of the merger as the decision may have been taken by the party president, Dey said he was committed to the party’s growth.
“I got to know about this from social media and the news. I welcome them to hold talks with me. Why won’t I be happy if my party grows? I have heard that the decision was taken by the party president. He has not called me about this yet,” he told ANI. Dey added that he wanted to “take the party forward”, and expressed his support for the NDA and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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