Rebel TMC MPs ready game plan, look to meet Speaker Om Birla Monday for recognition

He said their faction wants senior party MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar to be recognised as its leader in the Lok Sabha and Satabdi Roy as the deputy leader.

Basunia said West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari would be in Delhi Sunday, when he would hold a meeting with the TMC rebel MPs. Their bid to extend support to the NDA will further boost the BJP in Parliament, neutralising the challenge from the third-largest Opposition party in the House.

The TMC is imploding in the wake of its debacle in the Bengal Assembly elections last month.

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee seems to have effectively lost control of her Legislature Party after about 60 of the party’s 80 MLAs formed a separate bloc and elected Ritabrata Banerjee as their leader. An encore in the Lok Sabha would mean a split in the TMC’s Parliamentary Party as well.

Basunia told the Express that while 19 party MPs have backed the rebel faction so far, their “door is open for any other MP who wants to come”. He added: “We want to be recognised as the real TMC, we want to sit separately, and we want to be part of the NDA.”

He said that the rebel MPs have decided to chart a separate course because of the “high-handedness” of Abhishek Banerjee, the party national general secretary and Mamata’s nephew.

“Everything was fine when Mamata Banerjee was in control of the TMC. When the leadership went into the hands of Abhishek Banerjee, the party became some sort of a corporate entity. He treats leaders and workers like servants. Everyone is angry, be it MLAs or MPs. You have seen that three of the Rajya Sabha party MPs have quit already. He is not accessible, so everyone is angry.”

On why the MPs want to align with the NDA, Basunia said: “People have elected all of us to be MPs till 2029. In Bengal, the BJP has won. The BJP is already at the Centre. If we want to take up some developmental work in our constituencies, we need the support of the BJP. We are responsible to the people who elected us. We decided to form a faction so that we can do something for the people.”

Asked whether the dissident TMC MPs and MLAs would approach the Election Commission (EC) to seek recognition of their faction as the “real TMC”, Basunia said they would urge the Speaker to recognise them as a separate bloc first and then they will approach the EC. “Avashya jeyenge (will definitely approach the EC),” he said.

Meanwhile, senior TMC MP and Mamata loyalist Kalyan Banerjee skipped a daily meeting she held at her Kalighat residence in Kolkata Friday. This came a day after Kalyan said that Mamata must choose between Abhishek and her trusted party leaders who are “unhappy” with him.

Another veteran TMC leader and Mamata lieutenant, Anubrata Mondal, the former Birbhum strongman, also reportedly hit out at Abhishek, blaming him for the party’s plight. He also held the political consultancy firm I-PAC for the TMC’s poll defeat.