TMC crisis highlights: Abhishek Banerjee leaves ED office after 11-hour questioning in teacher recruitment case

TMC crisis highlights: The Enforcement board of directors on mon questioned Trinamool u.s. Congress (TMC) subject superior general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at the agency's Salt Lake office in connection with the 2022 bribe-for-job case involving the education department, officials said. Banerjee responded to the ED's summons and arrived at the Salt Lake CGO Complex around 11 am. The questioning did not end till 9.30 pm.The Trinamool Congress (TMC) was pushed deeper into a crisis on Sunday after at least 20 of its Lok Sabha MPs informed Speaker Om Birla that they had merged with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a move that could significantly alter the party's parliamentary strength and bolster the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).The group of rebel MPs met Birla and submitted a letter stating that they had merged with the NCPI, a party formed in 2022 that last contested elections in 2023. The party currently has no elected representative in any legislature across the country.According to a Lok Sabha functionary, the Speaker will verify the signatures of the 20 MPs before taking a decision on recognising the merger.TMC rebels announce merger with little-known NCPIAfter meeting the Speaker, rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said the lawmakers had decided to align with the NDA through the merger.“We, 20 MPs, have now merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party and will work with the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,” Dastidar said.The delegation that approached Birla included 19 MPs who submitted a formal letter expressing their desire to join the NCPI. First-time MP Rachana Banerjee, who is currently in Malaysia, conveyed her consent through the same communication, taking the group's strength to 20.Abhishek Banerjee challenges moveHours before the rebels met the Speaker, TMC loyalists Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad had approached Birla with a letter from the party’s Lok Sabha floor leader, Abhishek Banerjee.In the letter, Abhishek argued that a split within a political party cannot be recognised under the existing anti-defection framework and asserted that the TMC remains a single political entity.“My attention has been drawn to news reports to the effect that certain members of the Lok Sabha belonging to the AITC have submitted, or propose to submit, a communication to your good office seeking to be recognised as a separate group or faction of the AITC, independent of the legislative party,” he wrote.Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Maharashtra political crisis case, Abhishek maintained that a “split” is no longer available under the Tenth Schedule.“The AITC is a single, indivisible political party... There is in law only one AITC, one Leader of the Party in the House, and one Whip, all of whom hold office by authority of the political party and its competent organisational authority. No member or set of members can, by their own volition, carve out a parallel “group” or “faction” of the same party and claim independent recognition within the House,” the letter stated.Why NCPI was chosenA BJP MP involved in the discussions said the NCPI, though unrecognised, had contested elections in West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya.According to the BJP leader, the choice of the party was strategic.“The decision to merge with NCPI was taken to retain the rebels’ connection with West Bengal, but also give the Northeast a better representation in the Lok Sabha,” the MP said.How this impacts NDA numbersIf the merger receives the Speaker’s approval, the NDA’s strength in the Lok Sabha would rise from 294 to 314 members. Even then, the alliance would remain 46 seats short of the two-thirds majority mark in the Lower House.In the Rajya Sabha, the ruling alliance's tally could reach 155 seats, leaving it just short of the two-thirds threshold.