Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 13: In yet another jolt to the former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, veteran Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Saturday joined the TMC rebel group and reached the residence of Union Minister Bhupender Yadav in Delhi along with dissident MP Satabdi Roy.
The development comes at a time when the rebel group, which claims the support of 19 Lok Sabha MPs, are getting ready to meet Speaker Om Birla on Monday to urge him to recognise them as a separate bloc and allow them to sit alongside the MPs of the ruling BJP-led NDA in the House.
Rebel MP Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia said the dissident camp submitted a representation to the Speaker and would formally stake its claim on Monday. “We have submitted the letter…On Monday, we will go to the Speaker and stake our claim to form the real TMC parliamentary group.
We will ask the Speaker to give recognition to our claim,” Basunia said. He said the process to collect signatures began on June 8 and that 19 MPs had signed the representation. Sources said the timing of the meeting had not been finalised. Sources in the dissident camp said nearly 20 MPs are expected to reach Delhi ahead of Monday’s meeting and hold consultations on their future course of action.
The announcement drew a sharp response from the TMC, which maintained that the dissidents’ claim had no legal basis. Party MP Mahua Moitra said the Constitution’s 91st Amendment had removed provisions for a split and that lawmakers seeking to leave a party would have to merge with another political party.
“Traitor TMC lawmakers don’t know the law. Constitution 91st Amendment 2003 removed the provision for a split/separate bloc. The number of MPs is irrelevant — 2/3 of the original political party has to merge with another party. All 19 traitors need to resign & contest on BJP ticket,” she said in a post on X. TMC MLA Kunal Ghosh demanded that the signatures circulating on social media be matched with the specimen signatures available with the Lok Sabha Secretariat to establish their authenticity.
The latest flashpoint comes amid the TMC’s worst organisational crisis in recent years, with a rebellion that began in West Bengal after the party’s assembly election defeat now spilling over into Parliament. Amid the churn within the party, a purported list carrying the names and signatures of 19 TMC Lok Sabha MPs was circulated online, though the purported letter to Mr Birla was not in the public domain.
Sources close to the dissident camp claimed the MPs had informed the Lok Sabha Speaker about the formation of a separate parliamentary bloc under Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and conveyed their decision to support the BJP-led NDA while retaining a distinct political identity.
Dissident TMC leaders claimed that the document, which could not be independently verified, reflected support for their move. The list reportedly carries the signatures of Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Satabdi Roy, Bapi Haldar, Sharmila Sarkar, Prasun Bandyopadhyay, Jagadish Barma Basunia, Asit Kumar Mal, Arup Chakraborty, Rachna Banerjee, Saayoni Ghosh, Khalilur Rahaman, Abu Taher Khan, Yusuf Pathan, Mitali Bag, Mala Roy, Kalipada Soren, Deepak Adhikari, June Malia, and Partha Bhowmick.
TMC MP Kirti Azad, however, alleged that the BJP was attempting to engineer defections through “Operation Lotus” and claimed that efforts to split the party had not succeeded. “Operation Lotus, under the guidance of Amit Shah, is underway,” Azad said in a post on X on Friday, claiming that it had “failed so far.”
Citing Rajya Sabha MP Prakash Chik Baraik’s appearance outside BJP leader Nishikant Dubey’s residence, a meeting of dissident MPs at Union minister Bhupender Yadav’s residence, and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s visit to TMC MP Satabdi Roy’s residence, Azad alleged that there was an organised attempt to weaken the party.
Meanwhile, a high drama unfolded at the TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s Kolkata residence in the dead of the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.
A team of Bengal Police barged into Abhishek Banerjee’s home at 2:30 am early on Saturday, sources said. The midnight raid by the West Medinipur Police was apparently conducted to nab Abhishek Banerjee’s personal secretary Sumit Roy, sources added. Roy has been booked in an alleged extortion case.
The police demanded to conduct searches at 2.30 AM. The police team was stopped by Banerjee’s security, who was inside the house. After a confrontation with the security team, the police barged into the TMC MP’s house and conducted searches. As the news reached Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee, she landed at her nephew’s house immediately and confronted the police team, according to the sources.
After a high decibel drama for a while, the police team left Abhishek Banerjee’s house and soon the former chief minister also left for her house. Heavy Police and Central Forces presence was also seen the MP’s house on Saturday morning. Refusing to comment on the late night searches, Abhishek Banerjee told reporters to “go ask the investigating agencies.”
The TMC sources denied allegations against Banerjee’s aide and called the action “political vendetta.” The CID has also served a notice to Abhishek Banerjee to appear before the agency on June 16 in an alleged hate speech case during the West Bengal Poll campaign. Two separate cases are now being probed by the agency against Mamata Banerjee’s nephew.
Troubles have been mounting for Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and Trinamool strongman since the party’s loss in the Assembly elections. He was grilled for almost six hours and released a little before midnight on Thursday at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in South Kolkata.
The questioning was in connection with the ongoing probe in the case of mismatches in the signatures of several Trinamool Congress legislators on a crucial resolution relating to the appointments for opposition slots in the West Bengal Assembly. Abhishek Banerjee finally turned up to face the questioning on Thursday after dodging three consecutive notices for interrogation.
This came after the single judge vacation bench of the Calcutta High Court set a deadline of Thursday 6 pm to appear at the CID office for interrogation. Although the bench granted him protection from coercive police action, including arrest, for 21 days, it directed Abhishek Banerjee to cooperate with the investigating officers.
He has been summoned again for questioning in the case.
Meanwhile, another Trinamool leader has come under agencies radar over alleged corruption. Enforcement Directorate on Saturday conducted searches at the residence of MLA and former minister Madan Mitra. Probe agency conducted searches at Mitra’s house in Dakshineswar in connection with the alleged Municipality Recruitment Scam.
Investigation conducted so far has revealed that Madan Mitra got bribe in form of cash and gold through middlemen for appointments on various posts in different municipalities. Sources say Madan Mitra is linked to more than 125 such illegal appointments.
