New Delhi, Jul 27: Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Monday submitted two letters to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him to expedite a decision on the party’s pending petitions for disqualification of its 20 rebel MPs and revoke changes made to the seating arrangements of its parliamentarians.
Banerjee met Birla at around 11.15 am in the Speaker’s chamber, with the meeting lasting about 20 minutes, sources said.
According to sources, the Speaker did not give a clear response on the issue against the rebel MPs.
In his first letter, Banerjee said the 20 disqualification petitions, filed on June 19 under the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution and the Members of Lok Sabha (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules, 1985, had remained pending for over five weeks without notices being issued, hearings being scheduled or any procedural directions being passed.
“More than five weeks have elapsed since the filing of the petitions. To date, no notices have been issued, no hearings have been scheduled, and no procedural directions appear to have been passed. Such continued inaction is a matter of grave concern,” Banerjee said in the letter.
He said the petitions concerned 20 MPs elected on the TMC symbol who had aligned themselves with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), “an unrecognised political formation with no representation in Parliament or any state legislature”.
“An unduly prolonged pendency of disqualification proceedings frustrates the constitutional objective of the Tenth Schedule, permits the continuance of an uncertainty that the Constitution seeks to avoid, and risks rendering the safeguards embodied in the anti-defection law ineffective,” he said.
He also said the urgency had increased after the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry invited the MPs facing disqualification petitions to the all-party meeting on July 19 as a separate group, saying that the continued uncertainty over their status had the potential to undermine both the Tenth Schedule and the integrity of parliamentary proceedings.
In a separate letter, Banerjee objected to the Lok Sabha Secretariat’s July 18 circular changing the division and seat numbers of 28 TMC MPs.
He said another circular issued the same day continued to recognise the TMC as a single parliamentary party of 28 MPs with him as its leader.
“This clearly shows that the AITC is recognised as a single block of 28 MPs by your good office,” he said, and argued that it was unjust to alter the seating and division numbers based on a unilateral request from the rebel group when the Speaker had not yet decided the disqualification petitions.
“Pending your decision on the disqualification of these MPs and their current status being that of a non-merger with NCPI, it is patently unjust and contrary to established parliamentary practice to alter the seating and division numbers of our MPs based solely on a unilateral request from the renegade group. Moreover, this change has been made to the detriment of the remaining eight MPs, including myself, causing unwarranted prejudice while the matter remains under your consideration,” he said.
On June 19, Banerjee had submitted 20 petitions before the Speaker seeking disqualification of the rebel MPs after they announced that they had joined the NCPI.
The TMC contended that the MPs voluntarily gave up the party’s membership by joining another political formation and that their claim of a “merger” is not protected under the anti-defection law because the constitutional provision applies to the merger of the original political party and not merely its legislature party.
Ahead of the Monsoon session, the rebel MPs met Birla and discussed separate seating arrangements, recognition of the NCPI parliamentary group, and the designation of Sudip Bandyopadhyay as its floor leader and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar as its chief whip.
The NCPI was subsequently invited separately to the all-party meeting on July 19, prompting a symbolic walkout by opposition parties. (PTI)
