The Howrah home that has become HQ of a parliamentary revolt against Mamata Banerjee

AContract unpaved bylane at the Hatgachi hamlet in Howrah’s Sankrail ithiel town, around 20 km from calcutta, leads to a two-storey put up, painted in green and saffron, with an unkempt garden in front of it.The names of a couple – Uttiya Kundu and Shewly Kundu – along with their academic and professional details figure prominently on the iron gate at the entrance of the compound. While Uttiya is mentioned as the editor of a Bengali newspaper, a mathematics teacher and a yoga volunteer, his wife Shewly is described as an advocate in the Calcutta high court.The building, which until a day ago was a nondescript house, is the registered office of the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) — the registered unrecognised political party that made national headlines after a rebel group of 20 Trinamool Congress parliamentarians announced their merger with the little-known party.Overnight, the three-year-old NCPI became the fifth largest party in the Lok Sabha — after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, Samajwadi Party, and Dravida Munnetra Kazgham (DMK) — and the cynosure of the political turmoil that is going on in the Mamata Banerjee-led party.Formed in January 2023, the NCPI contested three seats in the Tripura assembly polls the same year. Uttiya and Shewly are among the founder members of the party.“The party was founded in January 2023. We contested some seats in the Tripura assembly elections in 2023 and the panchayat polls in West Bengal. Even though we contested the Tripura polls independently, we were with the NDA [National Democratic Alliance],” Shewly, who resigned around a month ago, told HT.The nondescript houseLocal residents said they knew the building housed the office of a political party, but were not sure about its leaders. “We knew the husband and wife used to run an NGO and a local newspaper. I haven’t seen the newspaper though. Just around three years back, we came to know that it is also the office of a political party,” said Uttam Das, a local resident.On Monday, the front iron gate was locked from inside with CAPF personnel guarding it. Entry was not allowed.“The first meeting where the discussion to set up the party was held in June 2022. The party was registered at the Sankrail office in January 2023. There are around 15 founder members who came from varied fields,” said Santanu Dey, NCPI general secretary. “We also had an office in Tripura, which was closed down in 2024.”Till Monday morning, most of party functionaries were unaware about the merger. However, later in the evening, Dey confirmed the merger talks within the party, although confusion over who within the NCPI held talks continued. “A meeting was held today by the party’s founding members. We haven’t received any communication from TMC MPs till evening. If they contact us, we can merge and work together,” said Dey.NCPI’s youth general secretary Titas Bhattacharya said: “We welcome the merger announcement by TMC MPs. Until yesterday, we were a small political party with hardly anyone aware of our existence. But everything suddenly changed in a dramatic sequence of events... But we aren’t sure who made the decision for the merger. We are still trying to figure it out.”Leader of the TMC’s rebel faction Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar told HT that Jyotiprakash Chatterji is the president of NCPI.The turmoil in TMC unfolded soon after its loss in the West Bengal assembly polls last month. At least 59 of its 80 MLAs formed a breakaway faction while at least 20 MPs on Sunday told Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that they have merged with the NCPI.