The factional battle within the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has reached the Supreme Court, with the Mamata Banerjee-led ‘Kalighat camp’ seeking the disqualification of 10 MLAs aligned with the ‘rebel’ Ritabrata Banerjee faction.
Senior TMC MP and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee said on Monday, 14 September that a special leave petition (SLP) had been filed in the Supreme Court by veteran MLA Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, who is aligned with the Kalighat camp. The petition challenges the West Bengal Assembly speaker’s alleged failure to decide on the MLAs under the anti-defection law. Kalyan Banerjee said the move followed a similar legal route adopted in disqualification proceedings involving MPs.
In this context, it is important to note that the speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly took no decision on the defection of Shiv Sena MLAs between 2022 and 2024. The case has never been settled, neither is there a law that lays down a timeframe for speakers to take such a decision.
The latest legal move comes amid a wider political crisis within the TMC, with the status of 20 rebel Lok Sabha MPs who announced their merger with the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) remaining unsettled.
The 20 MPs, who were among the TMC’s 27 Lok Sabha members, announced on 14 June that they had merged with the NCPI and extended support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. They subsequently sought recognition as a separate parliamentary group, maintaining that their move constituted a valid merger under the anti-defection law. Lok Sabha records, however, continue to list them as TMC members.
