TMC Crisis Deepens: Nearly 20 Lok Sabha MPs Defect to NDA

Amid deepening political crisis in the TMC, Senior MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar on Monday claimed that nearly 20 Lok Sabha MPs has decided to support the NDA and had communicated their position to Speaker Om Birla, triggering a split in the party's parliamentary unit . The development comes barely days after the TMC leadership suffered a setback in the West Bengal Assembly, where 58 of its 80 MLAs defied the party high command's decision to appoint veteran leader Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of the Opposition, and elected expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee to that post. The political turbulence that has gripped the TMC since its Assembly election debacle appeared to spill over to its parliamentary ranks on Monday, with a group of dissident MPs extending support to the NDA even as party supremo Mamata Banerjee was in Delhi attending an INDIA bloc conclave to chart a pan-India strategy against the BJP. Speaking to PTI over phone, Ghosh Dastidar said the MPs had informed the Speaker of their decision to support the NDA. "Nearly twenty TMC MPs, including me, have decided to write to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and formally support the NDA. We have sent a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker and stated that we want to support the NDA," she said. Sources said the dissident MPs intend to argue before the Speaker that Ghosh Dastidar continues to be the valid chief whip of the party in the Lok Sabha and that any subsequent changes announced by the party leadership were not completed through the required parliamentary procedure. Mamata Banerjee-led TMC had decided to remove Ghosh Dastidar as chief whip and replace her with Kalyan Banerjee, but that was not communicated to the Lok Sabha secretariat, another rebel TMC MP told PTI.