Tmc Crisis Abhishek Banerjee Letter Om Birla Anti Defection Law

As a group of rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders flew out to Delhi and huddled together at the residence of a Union Minister, two TMC MPs still in Mamata Banerjee’s camp reached Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s residence and submitted a letter by party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, which said that the TMC be treated as “a single political party represented in the House solely through its duly authorised Leader and Whip, and decline to accord any recognition, status, or facility to any purported separate group or faction of the AITC”.

Abhishek, who is also a Lok Sabha member, wrote in the letter that he has come to know that “certain members of the Lok Sabha belonging to the AITC have submitted, or propose to submit, a communication to your good office seeking to be recognised as a separate group or faction of the AITC, independent of the legislative party.”

“The AITC is a single, indivisible political party. The legislative party in the Lok Sabha derives its very existence from, and remains an emanation of, the political party. There is in law only one AITC, one Leader of the Party in the House, and one Whip, all of whom hold office by authority of the political party and its competent organisational authority,” read the letter, which as per TMC MPs was sent to Birla on June 10, but was handed over by Ghose and Azad on Sunday.

The letter said that no member or set of members can, by their own volition, carve out a parallel “group” or “faction” of the same party and claim independent recognition within the House.

“This position is squarely settled by the judgment of the Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra & Ors., 2023 INSC 516 (AIR 2023 SC 2406), decided on 11 May 2023 in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 493 of 2022 and connected matters, authored for the Bench presided over by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India,” read the letter.

“The defence of a ‘split’ stands abrogated. The Hon’ble Court held that the omission of Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 has the effect that the defence of a “split” is no longer available to members facing proceedings under the Tenth Schedule. The law therefore does not recognise the splintering of a political party into competing groups as a permissible event; it treats such conduct, instead, through the lens of disqualification,” read Benrejee’s letter.

He further argued that the political party and not the legislature party is supreme. “The Speaker recognises the political party, not rival factions. The Hon’ble Court held that where two or more factions claim to be the political party, the Speaker is to determine, prima facie, who the political party is for the purpose of adjudicating disqualification petitions under Paragraph 2(1) of the Tenth Schedule. The framework thus contemplates ascertainment of the one true political party not the conferral of independent recognition upon a faction,” he wrote.

Banerjee said that assuming without admitting in any manner that two-thirds of the legislative party has switched, there has been no merger of the political party with any party or any creation of a new party called AITC.

“The framers of the Constitution have intentionally identified two separate terms – political party and legislature party. The Constitution as well as the judgment stipulate that both conditions stated above have to be conjointly satisfied,” read the letter.

Banerjee argued: “Any voluntary act by which a member or members hold themselves out as a separate party/faction, repudiate the authority of the Party’s Leader and Whip, or function independently of the political party, would attract disqualification under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule as a voluntary giving up of membership of the political party, and under Paragraph 2(1)(b) in the event of voting or abstention contrary to the Party Whip.”

Requesting the Speaker to give an opportunity to the TMC to be heard before a decision is taken, Banerjee wrote: “treat the AITC as a single political party represented in the House solely through its duly authorised Leader and Whip, and decline to accord any recognition, status, or facility to any purported separate group or faction of the AITC.”

Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More