Speaker Om Birla invites Abhishek Banerjee on June 19 over TMC split

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has invited Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee to a meeting on June 19 to present his case regarding the party split, according to parliamentary sources. However, Trinamool Congress sources said the party had not received any communication from the Speaker’s Office as of 3 pm.

Parliamentary sources said 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs have demanded recognition as a separate group following their merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. The Speaker has decided to hear both factions before making a decision. On June 10, Abhishek Banerjee wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker, urging him not to accord any recognition, status or facility to any group claiming to be a separate faction of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). Banerjee had asserted that the Constitution and the anti-defection law do not permit the formation of a separate group within an existing political party.

Party MPs Kirti Azad and Sagarika Ghose also submitted the letter to Birla at his residence on Sunday.

“Treat the AITC as a single political party represented in the House solely through its duly authorised Leader and Whip, and decline to accord any recognition, status, or facility to any purported separate group or faction of the AITC,” Banerjee had said in his letter. Citing a judgment of the Supreme Court’s constitution bench in the Maharashtra political crisis, Banerjee had argued that the defence of a “split” is no longer available under the Tenth Schedule and that the legal framework contemplates identification of one political party, not recognition of rival factions within it.