With just Rs 75 in cash, NCPI lands 20 MPs
The Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) had just Rs 75 left in cash as its closing balance at the end of the financial year 2022-23. The figure appears in the annual auditor’s report submitted by the party to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for 2022-23, offering a snapshot of a little-known outfit that has now unexpectedly entered the national political conversation after a group of 20 dissident Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha MPs announced their merger with the party on Sunday.
The Tripura-based NCPI is an obscure party which does not hold a single elected representative or seat anywhere in India.
The NCPI registered itself as a political party in January 2023, with a building in Sankarail in West Bengal’s Howrah district as its address in the ECI records.
During the financial year 2022-23, the NCPI declared receiving Rs 1,13,075 in “donations from well-wishers”. Its expenditure was almost the same, Rs 1.13 lakh, including Rs 49,400 spent for the 2023 Tripura assembly polls.
Among the nine contributors were party president Shewly Kundu and vice president Uttiya Kundu, husband and wife by relation, who contributed Rs 15,000 and Rs 18,000 respectively.
The NCPI’s financial contribution and the auditor’s reports of 2023-24 and 2024-25 are not available in the ECI records. It has contested elections in 2023, wherein it fielded four candidates in the Tripura assembly elections and appealed to voters through its campaign slogan: “Reject political turncoats”. These four seats were Chawamanu, Ambassa, Karamchara and Kailashahar. However, its candidates finished behind NOTA, with some securing a few more votes.
Out of these four, two candidates contested on the party’s symbol, the third contested as an Independent, while the nomination of the fourth candidate was rejected. One of its candidates, Barjeda Tripura, polled 536 votes, 36 more than NOTA, while another secured 286 votes. The candidate who contested as an Independent got 376 votes. Barjeda said that he works as a daily wage labourer and has no knowledge of the latest political developments involving the party.
The party’s symbol was a pen nib, which had reportedly been allotted to it as a Registered Unrecognised Political Party. A Registered Unrecognised Political Party (RUPP) is a political organisation officially registered with the Election Commission of India (ECI) under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. However, it is “unrecognised” as it may not have met the strict electoral vote criteria required to be elevated to a “state” or a “national” party.
If the merger is approved by Speaker Om Birla, the NCPI, which currently has no local body councillors, let alone MLAs or MPs, will become the sixth largest party in the Lok Sabha and the second largest party in the ruling BJP-led NDA, well ahead of the TDP and the JDU. Behind the NCPI is also an unusual leadership profile.
Shewly Kundu, the founder president, describes herself as an advocate at the Calcutta High Court, with qualifications including “MSc in Mathematics, Ex MBA, LLM” and multiple certifications ranging from financial markets to land surveying. On Monday, she told reporters that she had stepped down from the post of president.
Uttiya Kundu, meanwhile, identified himself as a “Bengali newspaper editor, mathematics teacher, motivational speaker, ISO auditor, health consultant and yoga volunteer”. His stated qualifications include an “MSc in Mathematics” along with a range of diplomas spanning yoga training, technical courses and land surveying.
