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.
What do we know about 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.
The party'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.”
