India, Sept. 14 -- Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, who was among the Lok Sabha members to defect to the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) in June after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) lost power in West Bengal, said on Monday that 17 of them will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before Durga Puja in October.

He said the initial plan was to join the BJP directly, but it could not happen because of objections from Abu Taher and two other parliamentarians. "So, an arrangement was made for us to join the NCPI."

NCPI is an unrecognised party that contested two assembly seats in Tripura and polled a few hundred votes.

Basunia acknowledged they knew nothing about the NCPI until then. "Now, 17 NCPI MPs [members of Parli...