20 rebel Trinamool Congress MLAs on Sunday declared before the Lok Sabha Speaker that they have merged into a party Who does not have a single seat anywhere in India.
This move, apparently to avoid invoking the anti-defection law, has become one of its controversial clauses. This question was raised for the second time this year, just a few weeks after this, seven MPs of the Aam Aadmi Party did so. Almost identical steps in Rajya Sabha.
Will the stakes hinge less on political arithmetic and more on a legal question that the Supreme Court has yet to definitively answer: Can a group of MLAs announce the merger on their own, or must the political party they represent have to agree?
What is the anti-defection law and what does it allow?
India’s anti-defection law was introduced through the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which came into force through the 52nd Constitutional Amendment in 1985. This was a reaction to the phenomenon of “Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram” politics – MLAs switching parties in mid-terms to topple governments or achieve personal advancement.
The Tenth Schedule disqualifies any MLA who voluntarily gives up party membership or votes against his party’s direction in the House.
The law made two original exceptions. The first was “split”: if one third of the legislative party defected, the rebels were saved from disqualification. However, this provision was removed by the 91st Constitutional Amendment in 2003, which was added to routinely engineer departures under the presence of formal bifurcation.
What survived is the only exception: mergers. Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule lays down the conditions. The disqualification will not apply if the parent political party merges with another party and at least two-thirds of the members of the legislature group of that party agree to such merger. The language of the law suggests two conditions – a decision at the political party level, and legislative support of at least two-thirds of the strength.
Twenty MPs, one obscure party
Trinamool Congress crisis Following the party’s defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, which formed the first BJP government in the state. The rebellion within the parliamentary group rapidly unfolded.
Kakoli Ghosh DastidarRemoved from the post of Chief Whip, emerged as a prominent rebel face. He was joined by former floor leader Sudip Bandopadhyay, deputy leader Shatabdi Ray and a large section of the party’s Lok Sabha contingent, including actors Deepak Adhikari, Sayoni Ghosh and June Malia, former cricketer Yusuf Pathan and former Indian football captain Prasun Banerjee and others.
On Sunday, nineteen rebels personally submitted their letters to Speaker Om Birla. Twentieth, Rachana Banerjee presented her consent with a letter from Malaysia.
Additionally, they told Birla that they have merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India or NCPI – a party registered in 2022, which last contested elections in 2023 and currently has no elected seats at any level.
A BJP MP involved in the discussions told HT that the NCPI was selected to maintain the rebels’ ties to West Bengal while also increasing its symbolic reach to the Northeast.
If the merger is approved, its practical consequences will be significant. TMC’s Lok Sabha strength will reduce from about 28 to eight. In Rajya SabhaThe party has already reduced from 13 to 10 seats. The NDA’s Lok Sabha strength will increase from 294 to 314 – still 46 seats short of a two-thirds majority, though the alliance will remain within eight seats of that threshold in the Upper House.
On Sunday, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC took its step. TMC’s Lok Sabha House leader Abhishek Banerjee wrote to the Speaker arguing that “division under the Tenth Schedule is no longer available” and TMC remains a “single, indivisible political party”.
He cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 judgment in the Maharashtra political crisis – which created a sharp distinction between a political party and its legislative wing – to argue that no group of members can form a parallel faction and claim independent recognition in the House.
way Live updates on TMC crisis here
Senior lawyer and independent MP Kapil Sibal said more bluntly: “TMC legislature party rebels cannot merge with any political party; this can happen only if TMC wants to do so. Disqualify them.”
After seven of the party’s MPs joined the BJP in April, the TMC leadership indicated it may move the courts, mirroring AAP’s legal challenge.
legal debate
At the heart of both the AAP and TMC disputes is a constitutional question that the Tenth Schedule does not clearly resolve: does Paragraph 4 require an actual decision by the political party for merger, or is a two-thirds legislative block sufficient in itself?
The language of paragraph 4 refers to the “core political party” – the broader organisation, not just its elected representatives in the House. Paragraph 4 points out a structural difference between the two: a political party fields candidates and issues whips; The legislative party is the candidate once elected. Treating them as interchangeable would mean that legislators could effectively sever ties with the party that sponsored their mandate while claiming constitutional immunity.
case of 2023
The Supreme Court considered the adjacent area in 2023 in the case Subhash Desai vs. Principal Secretary to the Governor of Maharashtra. The case, which arose out of the Maharashtra political crisis, did not directly involve a merger claim, but the court drew a line: a legislative party cannot act independently of a political party.
The court held that the Tenth Schedule makes a “clear demarcation” between the two, and the legislative majority cannot determine the identity or decision of a political party. If legislators cannot appoint a rival whip or claim a party identity based solely on numbers, it follows – by the same logic – that they cannot effect a merger unilaterally.
Despite this, the legal situation has not improved.
In 2022, the Bombay High Court upheld a claimed “merger” arising from defection in Goa on the grounds that two-thirds of the legislature party had joined another party – without requiring proof that the parent political party itself had decided to merge.
This interpretation, which is currently challenged before the Supreme Court in the case Girish Chodankar v. Speaker, Goa Legislative Assembly, treats paragraph 4(2) as a self-contained provision, making the two-thirds legislative limit the sole qualifying condition.
Critics argue that this reading strips the merger exception of its constitutional purpose and turns it into a formal license for organized defection.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Chodankar case – which is still pending – is expected to determine whether paragraph 4 should be read conjointly, requiring both a party-level merger decision and legislative support, or disjointedly, where legislative numbers alone suffice. The TMC rebellion, which is unfolding in real time at the parliamentary level, adds considerable urgency to that determination.
role of chairman
For the time being, the fate of TMC rebels depends on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Before giving decision on the merger claim, he will verify the signatures of 20 MPs. The Speaker – or the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha in parallel proceedings involving the AAP – acts as the first constitutional authority on questions of disqualification, with the courts reviewing those decisions, not replacing them in the first instance.
Until a decision is reached, the rebels’ status is legally anomalous: they remain, on paper, linked to the party on whose ticket they were elected. This means they will remain subject to the TMC whip – and could face additional grounds for disqualification if they vote or act against it during the intervening period. The Tenth Schedule does not prescribe any time limit within which a Speaker or Chairman must take a decision on disqualification petitions, a gap that allows such ambiguity to continue through legislative proceedings of the outcome.
If the removal of the split provision in 2003 was intended to tighten the law, the merger exception has increasingly become the door through which organized defection seeks to pass. The AAP episode in April was a test. The rebellion of the TMC – 20 MLAs, a party with no MPs, and an NDA-aligned government-in-waiting – is yet another rebellion.
