Why Did TMC Rebels Ignore The Eknath Shinde Coup Playbook? Inside NCPI Merger Manoeuvre

Last Updated:June 15, 2026, 15:47 IST

Choosing the NCPI route, the rebels secured parliamentary survival, broke free from Kalighat’s control, gained an independent identity, and cleared the path to align with the NDA

With 20 of 28 Lok Sabha MPs and a staggering 60 of 80 MLAs firmly in the rebel camp, the dissident faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)—led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar in Parliament and Ritabrata Banerjee in Bengal legislative assembly—held all the cards required to pull off a textbook coup.

Political observers quickly assumed they would execute the Eknath Shinde or Ajit Pawar playbook, claiming to be the ‘real TMC’, freezing the iconic twin-flowers symbol, and pushing Mamata Banerjee out of the very house she built.

Instead, the rebels threw a curveball that left the political circles of not just Kolkata but the entire country scratching their heads. The bloc bypassed the “real party" template and engineered a quiet, overnight merger into an obscure, registered unrecognised entity—the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI). The NCPI is a registered unrecognised political party (RUPP) formed in 2023, which fought an election in Tripura the same year.

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To understand why the Trinamool rebels traded the potent branding of the “real TMC" or why they were advised to do so by BJP’s Bengal-in-charge Bhupendra Yadav after an almost five-hour-long meeting, one has to look past the optics and dive into the cold, calculated realities of the anti-defection law and parliamentary bureaucracy.

The Trap of the ‘Sadiq Ali’ Quagmire

The primary reason the rebels avoided claiming the parent party is that a “real party" battle is never won in a week. Under Para 15 of the Symbols Order, the Election Commission of India (ECI) relies on a strict legal framework—the 1971 Sadiq Ali ruling. This formula tests three things—the party’s objectives, its legislative majority, and its organisational majority.

While the rebels undeniably controlled the legislative and parliamentary wings, they faced an insurmountable wall at the grassroots. The organisational framework of the Trinamool Congress, from booth-level committees to district presidents and the core working executive, still remains fiercely loyal to Mamata Banerjee.

Had the rebels claimed the “real TMC" title, the ECI process would have dragged on for months, if not years. In the interim, the rebel MPs would have remained trapped in legislative limbo, bound by official TMC whips, and exposed to constant legal friction.

The Sadiq Ali judgment has a strong connection to, and significant bearing on, the landmark Subhash Desai judgment of 2023. The former became the ECI’s guiding precedent for resolving election symbol disputes, while the latter addressed questions of defection, delineated the powers of the Speaker, and clarified the legal framework governing symbol allocation.

In the 1971 Sadiq Ali case, the Supreme Court established the test of majority support as the primary criterion for determining entitlement to a party symbol. However, the 2023 Subhash Desai judgment cautioned that a mere ‘game of numbers’ could be misleading where legislators face potential disqualification under anti-defection provisions.

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While the Sadiq Ali ruling was delivered in an era when no anti-defection law existed, the Subhash Desai judgment clarified the interaction between symbol disputes and the anti-defection regime, ensuring that questions of party identity and legislative majority are assessed within the constitutional framework governing defections.

The Legal Realities Facing Rebel MPs

The circumstances in the Lok Sabha differ fundamentally from those in a state assembly such as Maharashtra, or the current situation in West Bengal. Launching a rebellion within the Parliament entails far greater legal and procedural constraints.

Within the Lok Sabha, the Tenth Schedule, commonly known as the Anti-Defection Law, is applied with considerable rigor. The Speaker cannot simply recognise a separate rebel faction or rearrange seating arrangements on the basis of an unresolved internal party dispute. Absence of an immediately recognised legal and organisational framework, or any attempt by rebel MPs to function independently within the House, could have exposed them to disqualification proceedings on the grounds of having ‘voluntarily given up’ their party membership.

The dissident MPs were acutely aware or they were made aware of this risk. Attempting to operate as a distinct ‘rebel TMC bloc’ while simultaneously challenging Mamata Banerjee’s authority would have invited swift anti-defection challenges, potentially jeopardising their parliamentary seats long before their claims could be adjudicated.

The Two-Thirds Merger Shield

The Tenth Schedule provides exactly one ironclad exception to disqualification, which is a formal merger, where at least two-thirds of the legislative wing agrees to join another registered political party.

By pulling exactly 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha MPs, the rebels hit a comfortable 71.4 per cent majority, clearing the constitutional bar with room to spare. Moving into the NCPI was thus a highly strategic, defensive legal device.

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By delivering a finalised transaction to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, they presented a done deal. It bypassed the need for an interim ruling, instantly neutralising the official TMC’s whip and insulating the MPs from the anti-defection axe.

Survival Over Sentimentalism

In West Bengal’s high-stakes and acutely charged political theatre, emotion often clouds strategy, but the architecture of this rebellion was entirely transactional.

Attempting to capture the “real TMC" would have meant dragging themselves through a brutal war of attrition in the courts, a gigantic process through truck-loads of paperwork and all while trying to manage the severe political backlash of an angry parent party.

By taking the NCPI route, the rebels chose a clean break over a prolonged identity crisis. They secured their immediate parliamentary survival, established an independent legal identity outside the control of Kalighat (Mamata Banerjee’s office and residence), and built a frictionless runway to align directly with the NDA ahead of the monsoon session in July.

About the Author

Madhuparna Das

Madhuparna Das, Associate Editor (policy) at CNN News 18, has been in journalism for nearly 14 years. She has extensively been covering politics, policy, crime and internal security issues. She has co...Read More

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