Kolkata:
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, struggling with the aftermath of the assembly polls defeat on side and legal complications on the other, Tuesday turned out to be hectic. In the morning, her nephew and party number two Abhishek Banerjee was questioned by the state’s Criminal Investigation Department or CID on the alleged forged signature issue.
Then came the question of dealing with the rebel bloc with a letter to Speaker Om Birla.
By evening, the rebels announced that they are joining a little-known party – the Nationalist Citizens Party – with two-thirds majority, which would make them immune to the anti-defection law.
Read: Trinamool Rebel Bloc To Merge With Nationalist Citizens Party: Kakoli Ghosh
But senior party leader Madan Mitra was calm.
The rebel group has “betrayed the Trinamool,” he told the assembled reporters. “They had contested the election under the Trinamool symbol, saying they want to strengthen the party under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership. Now they have moved away from the promise. That’s deceit,” he added.
Asked if the Trinamool will take the matter to court, he said that depends on Mamata Banerjee. Pointed out that they have two-thirds majority, Mitra said, “It is too small a number to form a separate party. There are lots of processes. This is just the beginning”.
He even threw in a jab at the rebels, disguised as a joke.
As someone pointed out that the rebels did not after all, form a new party, the 71-year-old said, “Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Forward Bloc. There is no Subhas Bose on that side”.
The rebels, though, made it clear that they will make an attempt to grab the Trinamool name and election symbol.
Trinamool’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay, a close aide of party chief and former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was one of the the last MPs to cross over to the rebel group, said: “When you leave with two-thirds of the party, you cannot demand the name of that party on the first day… In July, we will make a demand to give us the Trinamool (name) since we have two-thirds majority from Trinamool. Then the court will decide,” he added.
Earlier this evening, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, who is leading the rebel faction, said: “We command two-thirds majority. We will be part of the NDA and work under the leadership of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Sources said the decision was taken to avoid legal complications that inevitably come up in forming a separate bloc.
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