Overview
- At least 20 of the party’s 28 Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MPs grouped under Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and formally joined the little‑known Nationalist Citizens Party of India, declaring support for the NDA.
- The breakaway MPs attended an NDA parliamentary meeting earlier this week and have been given separate seating in the Lok Sabha, visibly distancing them from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool benches.
- Trinamool has filed disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule and its Lok Sabha leader Abhishek Banerjee wrote to Speaker Om Birla this week requesting an early hearing because no action has been taken in over five weeks.
- Suspended TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee staged a public protest outside the Parliament complex wearing a poster that labelled the defectors '20 traitors' and engaged in a widely seen exchange with Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi.
- The defections follow TMC’s recent losses in West Bengal, strengthen the NDA’s position in Parliament, and leave the Speaker’s pending decision on anti‑defection petitions as the key next development to watch.