TMC rebel MPs seek three weeks to respond to Lok Sabha disqualification notices
Twenty Lok Sabha MPs who quit the Trinamool Congress and aligned themselves with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) have sought three weeks to respond to notices issued by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on petitions seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law, senior leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said on Tuesday, September 1.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued notices to the 20 rebel TMC MPs on August 26, asking them to submit their replies within seven days to petitions filed by TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee seeking their disqualification, sources said.
The August 25 notices were accompanied by a copy of Banerjee's petition dated June 18.
“We got a letter from the Lok Sabha Secretariat on August 26 seeking our reply regarding Abhishek Banerjee's letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker requesting cancellation of the membership of 20 NCPI MPs. We have written to the Lok Sabha Secretariat seeking a time of three weeks to reply,” Bandyopadhyay, the NCPI's Lok Sabha floor leader, told PTI.
Another NCPI MP said the rebel lawmakers were consulting lawyers before finalising their response, suggesting that the group is preparing a detailed legal defence rather than rushing to meet the initial seven-day deadline.
The request for additional time comes at a politically sensitive juncture, with the disqualification proceedings unfolding alongside a wider organisational and legislative confrontation between the TMC leadership and the dissident camp.
The notices followed the Supreme Court's decision on August 25 to hear Banerjee's plea seeking an expeditious decision by the Lok Sabha Speaker on the petitions seeking disqualification of the rebel MPs.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notice to the 20 MPs on Banerjee's plea and directed that the proceedings before the Speaker be dealt with expeditiously.
Banerjee had approached the Supreme Court after filing separate petitions before the Speaker in June seeking disqualification of the MPs who had left the TMC and aligned themselves with the NCPI.
The Speaker's notices subsequently directed the MPs to submit their responses within seven days.
The decision to seek more time gives the rebel camp additional breathing space as it considers the legal and political implications of the proceedings, a rebel TMC MP said.
The MPs are also understood to be seeking legal opinions on the applicability of anti-defection provisions to their case and the arguments they can advance before the Speaker.
The dispute involving the 20 Lok Sabha seats is the latest flashpoint in a broader rupture that has turned the TMC's internal crisis into a direct institutional and political contest following its defeat in the West Bengal Assembly polls in May this year.
The dissident camp has sought to demonstrate that it enjoys substantial support among the party's elected representatives. In the West Bengal Assembly, 65 of the TMC's 80 MLAs had backed Ritabrata Banerjee's claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition, rejecting the nominee supported by the Mamata Banerjee camp.
The rebels subsequently convened a special session, elected senior MLA Arup Roy as chairperson and announced a parallel national leadership structure, arguing that the existing leadership had lost the confidence of a majority of elected representatives.
The confrontation later moved to Parliament, where 20 Lok Sabha MPs aligned themselves with the newly floated NCPI and joined the BJP-led NDA.
The TMC leadership has described the parliamentary defections as evidence of a coordinated political shift towards the BJP. The dissident camp, however, has maintained that its political and organisational decisions are driven by a loss of confidence in the existing TMC leadership.
The disqualification proceedings have thus assumed significance beyond the fate of the individual MPs, with both sides closely watching whether the Speaker's decision could alter the balance of political forces in West Bengal.
