Consultations among legal and constitutional experts underway
New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will take decisions on the defections in the Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) before the start of the monsoon session of Parliament, which normally begins in the third week of July, amidst demands of the rebel MPs’ disqualification by their parent parties, sources privy to the development said.
The Lok Sabha Speaker met and heard a TMC delegation headed by its leader Abhishek Banerjee as well as the party’s breakaway group, and a similar exercise was also carried out with regard to the Shiv Sena (UBT), they said.
Consultations among legal and constitutional experts of Parliament are underway before they provide their inputs to the Speaker to help him take the final decisions.
Past precedents – decisions taken by presiding officers in similar situations – are also being examined so that informed and legally sound decisions can be taken considering all constitutional and legal aspects, the sources said. The Lok Sabha Secretariat is learnt to be examining the possible seating arrangements for the monsoon session.
Besides the rebel groups of the TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT), the DMK also sought a separate seating arrangement, away from the Congress, after the principal opposition party broke its decades-old alliance with the Tamil Nadu party and joined hands with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s party TVK.
Altogether, 29 MPs were elected to the Lok Sabha on TMC tickets in the 2024 general election. As many as 20 MPs broke away from the party and joined a little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a registered unrecognised political party headquartered in Howrah, West Bengal, and sought a separate seating arrangement.
The rebel group also expressed allegiance to the Narendra Modi government and voiced the desire to join the ruling NDA.
One TMC MP passed away some time ago and the seat remains vacant.
In the case of Shiv Sena (UBT), a total of nine MPs were elected on the party tickets, out of which six have joined the rival Shiv Sena headed by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Both the TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT) argued before the Speaker that their rebel MPs should be disqualified as their defections fall under the anti-defection law.
The two parties argued that the disqualification under the anti-defection law will not be applicable only if two-thirds of the entire party walks away from its fold.
TMC general secretary and its Lok Sabha leader Abhishek Banerjee demanded before Birla that the rebels should be disqualified.
He also said the claims of the rebels that they ‘merged’ with the NCPI were not valid, and as per the law, two-thirds of the entire party must merge with another party, not just individual legislators.
Banerjee also submitted to the Speaker 20 separate petitions against the 20 rebels seeking their disqualification.
Shiv Sena (UBT) on Wednesday met Birla and urged him to share the demands submitted to him by the six rebel MPs who have now joined the Eknath Shinde-led party.
After meeting Birla, Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs Anil Desai and Arvind Sawant told reporters that they requested the Speaker to “uphold the provisions of the Constitution” and sought a copy of the demands submitted by the rebels.
“We asked him if he had received any appeal from the rebels…” Sawant said, adding that the Speaker told them they had not received anything in writing from the rebel MPs.
Desai said they underlined before the Speaker that the Tenth Schedule is clear: “Any group of a legislature party cannot merge into some other party on its own, even if they have a two-thirds majority”.
In February 2023, the Election Commission had recognised the Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena. Shinde was the principal architect of the split in the undivided Shiv Sena in 2022 that brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
