Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, party MP Sonia Gandhi and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee during the INDIA bloc meeting, in New Delhi
| Photo Credit:
Salman Ali
Embattled Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was in a meeting of her INDIA partners on Monday when senior party MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar declared that she, along with 19 TMC MPs, will join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Ghosh Dastidar said she and other MPs had decided to write to the Speaker Om Birla declaring their support to the NDA.However, the Speaker was not in Delhi and his office had not received any resignation letter till the time of going to press. What did transpire during the dday was that 15 TMC MPs, including Dastidar and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, who has already resigned, joined West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and senior Cabinet Minister Bhupendra Yadav in a meeting.Ghosh Dastidar told reporters that nearly 20 MPs had informed the Speaker of their decision to support the NDA. “We are 20 MPs. We have requested the Speaker for separate seating. We will be working in conjunction with the Central and the State governments.”TMC MP Mohua Moitra was on social media, labelling the faction led by Ghosh Dastidar as “traitors” “All the greedy, self-serving traitors with yellow-stained pants can please join the BJP now – resign your seats and contest on BJP ticket. Let’s see what big heroes you are.”The TMC currently has 28 Lok Sabha MPs, with one vacancy following the death of Basirhat MP Haji Nurul Islam. The support of 20 MPs would comfortably cross the two-thirds threshold required for protection under the anti-defection law. It would simultaneously inflate the NDA’s strength from the current 292 seats to 312 if the TMC’s rebel faction joins them. However, it still does not make for 363 seats that the NDA requires to pass Constitutional amendments in the House.Agitation planBanerjee, meanwhile, joined 23 members of the INDIA group including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi besides Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Addhav Thackeray, JMM leader Hemant Soren, National Conference Leader Omar Abdullah and others in formulating a joint strategy for agitation following student unrest over NEET paper leak and CBSE exam evaluation controversy and issues like price rise.The INDIA bloc decided on an dual-track course of action: writing jointly to the Chief Justice of India to seek judicial intervention against election manipulation and the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while simultaneously demanding the immediate resignation of the Union Education Minister over recent NEET and CBSE examination irregularities. Seeking to keep the government on the defensive, the alliance also called for an urgent all-party meeting to address the country’s precarious economic situation, rising unemployment, and inflation.Published on June 8, 2026
