New Delhi, June 15: Congress on Monday hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the rebellion in Trinamool Congress, with 20 of its Lok Sabha MPs merging with the little known NCPI saying that his strategy to engineer a two-third majority for the NDA in the Lok Sabha and lacks constitutional values, remain vulnerable and threatened every day he continues in office.
In a post on X, Congress General Secretary and Communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh said, “A desperate Union Home Minister – who is an absolute disgrace to the position once held by Sardar (Vallabhbhai) Patel – has taken Indian democracy to new lows in a shameless manner.”
Slamming the Union Home Minister over the breakaway in Trinamool Congress, Ramesh, who is a Rajya Sabha member said: “He has masterminded the illegal breakaway of 20 TMC MPs and their wholly questionable fusion with an unheard of and reportedly registered but unrecognised political outfit formed just three years back.”
Ramesh said that the ‘Nationalist Citizens Party of India’ (NCPI) could well end up becoming the second largest in the NDA, ahead of even the long-established and long-experienced TDP and JD(U), who should actually be protesting their downgrade through such underhand tactics and in such a disgusting manner.
“This bizarre move is part of the Union Home Minister’s strategy to engineer a two-third majority for the NDA in the Lok Sabha. Decency, decorum, and devotion to Constitutional values and principles remain vulnerable and threatened every day he continues in office,” he added.
The remarks came a day after the rebel MPs of the Trinamool Congress first met Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav at his residence on Sunday and then also met Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.
The group of rebel MPs submitted a letter to Birla stating that they had merged with the NCPI, a party formed in 2022 that last contested elections in 2023.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “For so long, we have been hearing that Bangladeshi infiltrators are entering India and that these infiltrators need to be driven out. They say ‘detect, delete, and deport’—meaning they will first be from rolls, and finally deported or chased away.”
“But today, I see that even political parties from Bangladesh are infiltrating. This Nationalist Citizens Party of India—the party you are talking about—was born in Bangladesh during the protests against Sheikh Hasina. Today, by calling them infiltrators, the National Citizen Party has reached Delhi,” he said.
Chowdhury also said that furthermore, those who support the BJP are trying to change the identity and name of the Trinamool Congress.
“Therefore, Amit Shah needs to be cautious that not only humans, but also Bangladeshi political parties, are infiltrating India…” the Congress leader added.
The NCPI currently has no elected representative in any legislature across the country.
According to a Lok Sabha functionary, the Speaker will verify the signatures of the 20 MPs before taking a decision on recognising the merger.
On Sunday, ahead of meeting of rebel MPs with Birla, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose and Lok Sabha Map Kirti Azad had approached him with a letter from the party’s Lok Sabha floor leader, Abhishek Banerjee.
In the letter, Abhishek Banerjee argued that a split within a political party cannot be recognised under the existing anti-defection framework and asserted that the Trinamool Congress remains a single political entity.
The Trinamool Congress had faced rebellion after the defeat in the recently concluded assembly polls in West Bengal.
