Rebel TMC MPs meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at his residence, in New Delhi on Sunday.AGARTALA: The only Bengal link of the Nationalist Citizens' Party of India (NCPI), oddly, is its Howrah address. Interestingly enough, the six-year-old Tripura-based party, registered in Howrah's Sankrail, is now tipped to be BJP's biggest coalition partner with 20 MPs.TDP has 16 MPs in Lok Sabha and JD(U) 12.Formed in 2023, the party's election symbol is a pen nib with seven rays and it has a limited footprint in Tripura and Meghalaya.However, it has never been able to gain enough popularity and has faced rejection from major parties as well as regional outfits like TIPRA and IPFT. In Tripura, Shantanu Saha manages the party, while Howrah's Tarun Kumar Roy is allegedly involved in its operations.In the 2023 Tripura elections, NCPI fielded three candidates — Jahangir Ali from Kailashahar in Unakoti district, Barjeda Tripura from Chawmanu and Krishna Kumar Debbarma from Ambassa. Despite this, it remained an almost non-existent political entity.That changed dramatically on Sunday when 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs informed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that they had merged with NCPI and sought a separate seating block in the House alongside NDA members.Speaking after meeting Birla, rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said two-thirds of TMC's Lok Sabha members had backed the move. "Two-thirds MPs of TMC have given a letter to the Speaker for a separate seating arrangement. We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party and support the NDA," she said.The merger will bring into the NDA fold six women MPs — Saayoni Ghosh, Satabdi Roy, Rachna Banerjee, June Malia, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Mala Roy — along with three Muslim MPs from Murshidabad: Khalilur Rahman, Abu Taher and Yusuf Pathan.Ironically, one of NCPI's slogans was: "To save your rights, reject political turncoats."When asked about the road ahead, Satabdi Roy told reporters in Delhi, "We have merged with NCPI. We will decide our strategy over time." Bankura MP Arup Chakraborty said party offices would now be opened across Bengal.Veteran MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the merger route was chosen in line with the anti-defection law, which permits a merger when at least two-thirds of a legislature party joins another political party. With 20 MPs in its camp, the rebel bloc has one more member than the two-thirds threshold required from TMC's 28-member Lok Sabha contingent.Bandyopadhyay, however, indicated that joining NCPI could be a stopgap arrangement as the dissident bloc has not abandoned its plan to stake claim to being the "real Trinamool"."We have joined NCPI. It is a recognised regional party. We have merged with it. When two-thirds of the party leaves, you cannot demand the party's name on the first day itself. When Parliament session commences in July, the other group will come as Trinamool and we will make a demand to have the TMC identity. In my experience, the Trinamool symbol might be frozen," he said.He added that the question of who constitutes the "real TMC" would ultimately be settled through legal and constitutional processes.The Mamata Banerjee camp moved quickly to counter the rebels' claim. TMC MPs Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad met Birla separately and submitted a letter from Lok Sabha leader Abhishek Banerjee urging him not to recognise any separate faction of the party.TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the rebel MPs had betrayed the mandate they received from voters."We do not know which party they are going to join or with whom they are aligning. But the people here were Mamata didi's candidates, and they won on anti-BJP votes. The voters who sent them to Parliament voted against the BJP. If they are now joining the BJP camp, it is nothing short of a complete betrayal. A betrayal of every single voter," he said.(Written with additional inputs from Dipawali Mitra in Kolkata)You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Kolkata | Silver Rate in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata | Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Petrol Price in Kolkata | Diesel Price in Kolkata | CNG Price in Kolkata | LPG Price in KolkataStay updated with the latest Kolkata news. Download the TOI App.