PTI
New Delhi
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday gave the approval of the merger of six Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs with the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and separate seatings for the 20 rebel TMC law makers, who have joined a little know party, NCPI.
Official sources said with merger of the six MPs with it, the strength of the Shiv Sena has gone up to 13 from seven.
The TMC rebel groups of 20 MPs will seat separately, away from the parent party, sources said.
No final decision has been taken on the demand of the rebel TMC MPs to recognise themselves as part of the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) and the matter is still under consideration, they said.
Decisions on the two rebel factions of the TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT) has been taken by the Speaker ignoring demands of the rebel MPs’ disqualification by their parent parties.
The rebel TMC MPs are also likely to attend the Sunday’s all party meeting.
The Lok Sabha Speaker personally met and listened to a TMC delegation headed its leader Abhishek Banerjee as well as the party’s breakaway group.
A similar exercise was also carried out with regards to the Shiv Sena (UBT).
Consultations with the legal and constitutional experts of the Parliament have also done and they provided their inputs to the Speaker to help him take the final decisions, sources said.
The decisions came two days ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament which will begin on July 20
Past precedents, decisions taken by the former speakers of Lok Sabha and chairmen of Rajya Sabha in similar situations were also examined before taking the informed and legally sound decisions. Constitutional and and legal aspects were also looked into, sources said.
Besides the rebels groups of the TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT), the DMK also sought 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 and became part of his government.
This demand is also likely to be accepted by the Speaker.
Altogether, 29 MPs got 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 separate seating arrangement.
The rebel group also expressed their allegiance to the Narendra Modi government and expressed their desire to join the ruling NDA.
One TMC MP passed away sometime ago and the seat remains vacant.
In case of Shiv Sena (UBT), a total of nine MPs got elected under the party tickets 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 the defections fall under the anti-defection law.
The two parties argued that the anti defection law may not be applicable only if two-third of the entire party walk 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 before the Speaker 20 separate petitions against the 20 rebels seeking their disqualification.
Shiv Sena (UBT) also met Birla and urged him to share the demands submitted to him by the six rebel MPs of the party who have now joined the Eknath Shinde-led party.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Anil Desai had said that they conveyed to 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”.
On July 14, Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, leaders of the rebel TMC, met the Speaker and discussed with him seating arrangements for the party’s 20 MPs in the Lower House.
They also discussed the allotment of a party office in the new Parliament building, the sources said.
