Nineteen of the Trinamool Congress’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs have signed a letter to Speaker Om Birla asking to be recognised as the legitimate TMC parliamentary group. The petition, submitted on June 12, follows a slow-motion fracture that began with the party’s crushing defeat in the May 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, where the BJP won roughly 176 seats and reduced Mamata Banerjee’s party to about 94 in a 294-seat legislature. The rebellion has a destination. The BJP needs these defectors to build the two-thirds majority required to pass a constitutional amendment that failed in April.
The dissidents include former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, actress-turned-MP Saayoni Ghosh, and veteran parliamentarian Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. Three TMC Rajya Sabha members resigned within the same week. In the West Bengal Assembly, nearly 60 MLAs have joined a rebel camp led by Ritabrata Banerjee, a former TMC leader expelled from the party. The complaints are consistent across factions: lawlessness, misgovernance, unemployment, corruption at junior levels, and the outsized influence of Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata’s nephew and the party’s national general secretary.
Rebel MP Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia told reporters: “We will go to the Speaker and stake our claim to form the real TMC parliamentary group.” The rebels have requested separate seating in the Lok Sabha and said they intend to work “in conjunction with the Central and State Government for the development of West Bengal.” That language is a signal. Several rebel MPs have already met with Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and senior BJP leaders, fuelling speculation about formal alignment with the ruling NDA.
The constitutional amendment in play is the 131st Amendment Bill, which links women’s parliamentary reservation to a delimitation exercise that would expand the Lok Sabha from 550 to 850 seats. The NDA holds 293 seats. It needs 367 for the two-thirds supermajority required to amend the Constitution. The bill was defeated on April 17 when the government fell short. A senior NDA minister told the Tribune: “The Bill is our topmost priority. Once we cross the two-thirds mark, we will pilot the Bill.” Even with all 20 TMC defectors, the NDA would reach only 313, still 54 seats short. But the BJP is courting defectors from other opposition parties simultaneously.
The anti-defection law is the legal barrier. TMC MP Mahua Moitra, who remains loyal to Mamata, argued that the Constitution’s 91st Amendment removed the provision for a party split in 2003. Under the current Tenth Schedule, two-thirds of a party’s legislators must merge with another recognised political party for the defection to survive a Speaker’s ruling. Nineteen of 28 is 67.9 per cent, just barely at the two-thirds threshold. Whether Birla accepts the petition or disqualifies the rebels is a decision that will carry significant political weight.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh accused the BJP of running “Operation Lotus,” the party’s well-documented strategy of inducing defections from state-level opposition parties. “The fight is on. His evil designs must not and will not succeed,” Ramesh said, referring to Home Minister Amit Shah. TMC MP Kirti Azad made the same allegation directly: “Operation Lotus, under the guidance of Amit Shah, is underway.” The BJP’s new state government in West Bengal has moved aggressively on policy since taking power, and the rebel TMC faction’s willingness to cooperate with Delhi gives Shah’s legislative agenda a plausible path forward.
Mamata Banerjee has not issued a public response. She met with INDIA bloc leaders in New Delhi in what appeared to be an effort to shore up her standing within the opposition alliance. Senior TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee issued an ultimatum to Mamata, demanding she choose between him and nephew Abhishek. Loyalist MP Pratima Mondal denied involvement with the rebels and reaffirmed her commitment to the party through 2029. The Trinamool Congress has released no official statement on the crisis.
The delimitation bill, if passed, would redraw India’s political geography. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan would gain seats. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh would lose them. Southern states, which controlled population growth more effectively, have long opposed a reapportionment that rewards demographic size over governance. The TMC split is not just a party crisis. It is part of a structural pattern in which India’s regional opposition parties disintegrate after state-level defeats, and the BJP absorbs the debris. Whether 19 signatures on a letter to the Speaker become 367 votes in the chamber depends on how many other opposition parties are quietly breaking apart.
