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New Delhi/Kolkata: The Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), an obscure regional political party, formed in late 2022, that contested only three seats in the 2023 Tripura assembly elections with a slogan to reject “political turncoats” shot to national fame on Sunday (June 14) as a group of rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs announced that they would merge with it. 

The move, a bid to avoid legal hurdles of disqualification under the anti-defection law, was announced by TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, one of the principle architects of the party’s parliamentary rebellion following its defeat in the 2026 Bengal assembly elections. Following a meeting with the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in Delhi, Dastidar claimed that the rebel group had support of 20 out of the TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs and would merge with the NCPI, and support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

While it is distinctly strange that a regional political party registered in Bengal, that has never even contested a Lok Sabha election, will now house a majority of the MPs of the fourth largest party in the Lok Sabha, what is even more ironic is that in the lone election that the NCPI contested, its campaign posters had warned voters against political defectors.

‘If the party were to merge with the BJP, I would have no problem’

The NCPI’s 2023 Tripura assembly election campaign posters on its Facebook page read: “Protect your rights by rejecting political turncoats, not politicians, join social workers”.

The campaign posters list Shewly Kundu as president, Uttiyo Kundu as vice president and Shantanu Dey as organisational secretary.

Even before the merger has taken effect on the ground, murmurs of discontent have already come to the fore........

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