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Several parliamentary committees are set to be reconstituted as their terms are about to end this week.
Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee (File Image: PTI)
Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee has written to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, urging it not to include the dissident MPs of the party in parliamentary panels that will be reconstituted, citing disqualification petitions against them.
Several parliamentary committees are set to be reconstituted as their terms are about to end this week.
PTI, citing sources, reported that the Lok Sabha Secretariat has been reaching out to parties seeking nominations for different parliamentary panels, as the tenures of 24 departmentally related parliamentary committees end on September 26. Parliamentary panels have a one-year term and are reconstituted annually.
‘Disqualification Petitions Pending Against 20 Rebel MPs’
The sources informed that in response to a letter from Lok Sabha officials requesting nominations for the panels, Banerjee said the rebel MPs, who have joined the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) — a Registered Unrecognised Political Party (RUPP) — should not be included in any panel.
The TMC leader pointed out that disqualification petitions are pending against the 20 MPs, who switched sides shortly after the party’s defeat in the West Bengal Assembly polls in May.
The 20 rebel MPs, including veterans like Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, announced in June that they were joining the NCPI, and sought recognition as a separate parliamentary group. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is yet to decide on the petitions and the rebel MPs continue to be listed as TMC members in Lok Sabha records.
The rebels have maintained that their move is protected by the two-thirds provision under the anti-defection law. With 20 of the TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs joining the NCPI, they have argued that the threshold is met.
Banerjee, however, has contended that the two-thirds merger provision applies to the original political party and not merely its legislature party. On June 19, he submitted 20 separate petitions to Birla seeking the disqualification of the MPs under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, arguing that by joining another political formation, they have voluntarily given up their membership of the TMC.
After the petitions remained pending for weeks, Banerjee approached the Supreme Court seeking an expeditious decision by the speaker. On August 25, the apex court issued notices to the 20 MPs and directed that the disqualification proceedings before the speaker be dealt with expeditiously. The Lok Sabha Secretariat subsequently issued notices to the MPs on August 26, seeking their responses within seven days.
The rebel MPs subsequently sought additional time to respond to the notices.
Birla on September 3 granted them time till September 22 to submit their replies.
The MPs are also understood to be seeking legal opinions on the applicability of anti-defection provisions to their case.
On Tuesday, the rebel MPs asked the Lok Sabha Secretariat for another four weeks to respond to the petitions seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law, and were granted the extension.
Besides Ghosh Dastidar and Bandyopadhyay, the rebel camp includes Satabdi Roy, Prasun Banerjee, Rachana Banerjee, Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, Partha Bhowmick, Arup Chakraborty, Adhikari Deepak Dev, Sayani Ghosh, Bapi Haldar, Mohammad Abu Taher Khan, Kalipada Saren Kherwal, Asit Kumar Mal, June Maliah, Mitali Bag, Khalilur Rahaman, Mala Roy, Sharmila Sarkar and Yusuf Pathan.
(With PTI inputs)
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Ask News18TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee requested that the Lok Sabha Secretariat exclude the 20 dissident MPs who joined the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) because disqualification petitions are currently pending against them.
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September 23, 2026, 19:48 IST
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