New Delhi, June 13 -- Nineteen of the Trinamool Congress's 28 Lok Sabha MPs have signed a letter to Speaker Om Birla asking to be recognised as the legitimate TMC parliamentary group. The petition, submitted on June 12, follows a slow-motion fracture that began with the party's crushing defeat in the May 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, where the BJP won roughly 176 seats and reduced Mamata Banerjee's party to about 94 in a 294-seat legislature. The rebellion has a destination. The BJP needs these defectors to build the two-thirds majority required to pass a constitutional amendment that failed in April.

lawlessness, misgovernance, unemployment, corruption at junior levels, and the outsized influence of Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata's ne...