In a massive blow for Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, the rebel faction comprising around 20 Lok Sabha MPs of the party has formally decided to merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a registered regional political party. Veteran TMC parliamentarian and former Lok Sabha party leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay, along with other dissident leaders including Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Satabdi Roy, announced the move after meeting Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Sunday.
The faction has also decided to join the NDA, marking a massive gain for the ruling coalition in the lower house. The group has sought separate seating arrangements in the House. The rebel faction met the Lok Sabha Speaker after holding a meeting at the residence of Union Minister Bhupender Yadav.
Talking to reporters, Sudip Bandyopadhyay said, “We have joined the Nationalist Citizens’ Party. This is a political party. It is a recognised regional party. We have merged with it.” He added that the matter of which group is real TMC will be decided in court later.
#WATCH | Delhi: TMC rebel MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay says, "We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party… It is a regional party. This is the system. When you leave with 2/3rd of the party, you cannot demand the name of that party on the first day itself… In July, we will… pic.twitter.com/dLGtFJZvB0
— ANI (@ANI) June 14, 2026
Following the meeting with the Speaker, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar confirmed that the group had requested separate seating and announced the merger. Confirming the merger with NCPI, she said, “We, the twenty MPs elected from the AITC, met the Speaker and submitted a letter requesting to sit separately; these twenty MPs constitute more than two-thirds of our total strength. We are merging with the Nationalist Citizens Party. Moving forward, we will work for the nation and collaborate with the NDA under the leadership of the Prime Minister.”
#WATCH | Delhi: After meeting Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Rebel TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar says, "We, the twenty MPs elected from the AITC, met the Speaker and submitted a letter requesting to sit separately; these twenty MPs constitute more than two-thirds of our total… https://t.co/9rbLSAmmwQ pic.twitter.com/XIOlUMGSsY
— ANI (@ANI) June 14, 2026
The decision comes in the aftermath of TMC’s heavy defeat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. A significant section of the party’s Lok Sabha members, representing more than two-thirds of TMC’s total parliamentary strength of 28 MPs, have broken away from the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. The rebels have claimed that they represent the “real TMC” and have approached the Speaker for recognition as a separate parliamentary bloc.
The strategic merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India is aimed at ensuring compliance with the anti-defection law under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. According to the law, legislators face disqualification if they voluntarily give up membership of their political party or vote against party directives. However, an exception is provided in cases of merger of political parties. If not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned agree to a merger with another political party, such members are protected from disqualification. This means, rebel MPs or MLAs can’t form a new party, but the group can join an existing party.
By merging their group, which comfortably crosses the two-thirds threshold, with the existing registered party NCPI instead of individual defections or forming a new party, the rebels have ensured that it will be a legitimate party merger rather than defection.
The Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) is a registered unrecognised political party (RUPP) with the Election Commission of India. The party is based on the North East, had contested elections in Tripura, and have built a considerable base in Meghalaya.
Earlier today, TMC’s National General Secretary and Leader of the Party in the Lok Sabha, Abhishek Banerjee, wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging that no recognition be given to any attempt by a section of TMC members to form a separate group or faction independent of the official legislative party. He had stated that the AITC is a single, indivisible political party and that the legislative party derives its existence from the political party.
Citing Supreme Court judgements, Banerjee wrote that the only lawful way for defection is through a merger under Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule, which requires the merger of a political party with at least two-thirds of the legislature party members. No such merger has occurred, he had wrote. But the rebel faction has made his arguments invalid by merging with NCPI. Therefore, the speaker will be free to recognise them as members of the NCPI, as the defection complies with the law.
