'Still in the dark': Confusion shrouds TMC rebels' merger with NCPI

COnfusion shrouded the proposed merger betwixt renegade Trinamool us congress MPs and the nationalistic Citizens company of India (NCPI), with some leaders of the little-known party saying on Tuesday that they were yet to receive any communication from the lawmakers, even as the dissidents named a new president of the Howrah-based outfit.TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is leading the rebel faction, told the media that Jyotiprakash Chatterjee is the new president of NCPI. Speaking to HT, however, NCPI leaders said that they were still in the dark about the merger negotiations and Chatterjee being appointed the new president.“Let us first settle down with the bloc that we are trying to merge with another party. Acceptance has already come to us. They are happy to take us. We will work together with the NDA under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. They are looking into the affairs of this merger and how to use the schemes that were not implemented in West Bengal,” Dastidar told media persons in Delhi.The NCPI announced the merger decision on its Facebook page, saying that with 20 MPs, it is now the “largest parliamentary force from West Bengal”. The social media page said that while NCPI had a strength of 20 MPs from West Bengal, BJP had 12 seats, the TMC eight and the Congress one. One seat is vacant.“With 20 Lok Sabha seats, NCPI emerges as the largest parliamentary force from West Bengal, shaping the state’s voice at the national level. The numbers speak for themselves. Leadership, representation, and the mandate of the people continue to define the future of Bengal and India,” says the party’s social media page.The party, set up in January 2023, shares its registered office address with a non-governmental organisation and a local vernacular newspaper at Hatgacha village in Howrah district. It is the residence of Shewly Kundu, who along with her husband Uttiya Kundu, were among the founding members of the party. Shewly resigned as the party’s national president a month ago. Uttiya remained untraceable.Also Read | Lok Sabha Speaker to meet TMC leaders before taking a decision“You will be able to speak to him (Uttiya) in a day or two. I don’t know who the present president is. You will come to know that too very soon,” Shewy said on Tuesday.“We have not received any communication from the TMC MPs till Tuesday evening. Till now we are still in the dark about the merger-decision. We, however, welcome the merger decision,” said Santanu Deu, organising general secretary and founding member of NCPI.“We don’t know who Jyotiprakash Chatterjee is and how he was named the president. I came to know Dastidar has told the media that the merger has been accepted by NCPI. We don’t know who took the decision and when,” said Dilip Roy, general secretary of the party and its former state president.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). The NCPI contested three seats in the Tripura assembly polls in 2023. Uttiya and Shewly are among the founding members of the party.The turmoil in the TMC unfolded soon after its loss in the West Bengal assembly polls last month. At least 59 of the party’s 80 MLAs formed a breakaway faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee. At the national level, at least 20 MPs have rebelled against the party, setting the stage for one of the biggest defections in India’s parliamentary history.