Will TMC rebel group get recognition in Lok Sabha? Speaker may hear both sides, likely to seek legal opinion

Published 16 June 2026 · politics

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will hear the 20 defected TMC MPs as well as the faction led by Mamata Banerjee before deciding on giving

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will hear the 20 defected TMC MPs as well as the faction led by Mamata Banerjee before deciding on giving recognition to the breakaway faction, sources told news agency PTI. Birla is likely to seek legal opinion Earlier, sources from Parliament told PTI that Speaker Om Birla is likely to seek legal opinion on the defected leaders' demand to be recognised as a separate group after a proposed merger with the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI). Around 20 TMC MPs announced they were merging with the NCPI and said they would later stake a claim to be recognised as the "real TMC". Any decision on the group's demand will be taken before the Monsoon Session of Parliament, which usually commences in the third week of July, sources were quoted by PTI as saying.

A decision on whether the breakaway faction gets the recognition will be based on the written opinion of the Union law ministry, which will be given after consulting a senior law officer. The legal opinion will be sought so that the Speaker's decision, if challenged in court, can withstand judicial scrutiny, sources told PTI. The crisis in the TMC deepened on Sunday as the defected MPs announced their merger with the NCPI and met Birla seeking a separate seating arrangement in the Lower House. After the meeting, defected MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said 20 party MPs had signed the representation submitted to the speaker. "Two-thirds of TMC MPs have given a letter to the speaker for a separate seating arrangement.

We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party and support the NDA," she said. 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 and has little footprint in national politics. Abhishek called to meet Om Birla Sources from the Mamata-led TMC told news agency PTI that its leader Abhishek Banerjee was called for a meeting with Speaker Birla at a two-hour notice when he was still being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate on Monday. Banerjee got an email from the Speaker's office at around 2 pm on Monday, TMC sources were quoted by PTI as saying.

The office asked Banerjee to meet Birla at 4 pm. Soon after, the Speaker's office called party MP Kirti Azad and told him about the email. In response, Azad informed the Speaker's office that Banerjee was "committed to cooperating with all investigative agencies" and was cooperating with the investigation at the ED office in CGO complex in Kolkata, sources said. Later in the day, Azad also met the Speaker to inform him about the email.