Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla summons TMC's Abhishek Banerjee over party defection crisis

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has summoned Trinamool Congress national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee for a meeting on June 19. The Speaker wants Banerjee to present the party's position on the ongoing defection crisis and clarify the situation.

Twenty out of Mamata Banerjee's 28 Lok Sabha MPs announced their merger into the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a registered but unrecognised Tripura-based party founded in 2022. The rebel TMC MPs, led by Shatabdi Roy, met BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav before seeing the Speaker. Two TMC Rajya Sabha members, Prakash Chik Baraiik and Koyal Mallick, have also resigned from their positions.