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New Delhi: In an apparent bid to avoid disqualification under the anti-defection law, the rebel MPs of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday (June 14) after meeting Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla announced that they will be merging with a little-known regional party named the Nationalist Citizen Party of India (NCPI).

The party only formed in late 2022 and last contested four seats in the 2023 Tripura assembly elections. The TMC on the other hand with 28 MPs is the fourth-largest party in the Lok Sabha and the third-largest opposition party in the House.

The rebels said they have the support of 20 of the TMC’s 28 MPs in the Lok Sabha and a claim for the TMC would be made in July, as they have the support of two-thirds of its members in the Lok Sabha.

While the move may seek to avoid attracting provisions of the anti-defection law, constitutional law expert and former Lok Sabha secretary-general P.D.T. Achary writing in The Wire on Saturday had said that the understanding that two-thirds of MPs or MLAs merging with another party will not be disqualified under paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule is a wrong one, as the law provides for the merger of the original political party and not of its legislators.

The rebel MPs had earlier said that they would remain as a separate faction in the Lok Sabha.

However, just ahead of the rebel camp’s meeting with Birla on Sunday evening, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is the party’s virtual second-in-command after........

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