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The Congress leader, standing before the Parliament complex with her hands clasped in front of her, appeared to nod in agreement as she looked at the poster. She then raised a finger towards it and asked Banerjee whether the same images were printed on the back.
“Yes,” the Trinamool Lok Sabha MP responded.
“Turn and show,” Gandhi asked the 69-year-old MP, pointing him towards the waiting group of photojournalists.
“They have come for you. I am done,” Banerjee replied, deflecting attention from himself.
As the Trinamool MP prepared to leave, he praised the Congress leader for her speech from the previous day.
“You spoke very well yesterday,” Kalyan Banerjee, a Mamata Banerjee loyalist, told Gandhi while giving her a thumbs up.
“Thank you,” she replied.
At that moment, a reporter asked Banerjee, “What have you brought, Kalyan Banerjee?” referring to the poster.
“The photo of 20 traitors,” Banerjee said, as the poster hanging from him carried pictures of rebel Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs on both the front and back.
At least 20 of the 28 Trinamool members in the Lok Sabha have formed a group under the leadership of MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar to move away from Mamata Banerjee’s party. The MPs joined the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), until now an unknown entity, and expressed their allegiance to NDA. These rebel leaders are the ones Trinamool has referred to as “gaddar” (traitors).
The list of MPs includes Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Rachna Banerjee, Jagadish Chandra Barma, Partha Bhowmick, Arup Chakraborty, Adhikari Deepak Dev, Sayani Ghosh, Bapi Haldar, Abu Taher Khan, Kalipada Saren Kherwal, Asit Kumar, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, and a few others.
A meeting of the NDA parliamentary party was held at the Parliament House complex on Tuesday, with the attendance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top Union ministers. The meeting, titled “Mangal Milan”, was also attended by MPs who rebelled against the Trinamool Congress leadership and joined the NCPI.
When Banerjee was asked about the location of the rebel MPs, he replied, “Right here- inside Parliament, sitting next to Modiji.”
When asked what action should be taken against the rebel MPs, Banerjee said, “This should be treated as a case of defection; a defection petition has been filed. It’s been five weeks, yet nothing has happened - but then again, anything goes under BJP rule.”
As the exchange continued, Priyanka Gandhi, who was accompanied by a Congress MP, stood nearby and listened.
She intervened and pointed out that “some MPs went from our side to yours and then to the BJP.”
Banerjee responded, “Those people won on our ticket; your people had left your fold back in 2014. You had - and still have - no presence in Bengal; that is why they never entered Parliament on your ticket.”
Independent MP Pappu Yadav then joined the conversation.
“Still Congress is there,” Yadav said.
The Trinamool MP said that he too had been part of the Congress at one point.
“I was in the Congress too; I was the Vice President of the Youth Congress. You people drove Mamata (Banerjee) Didi away. If you hadn’t driven Didi away, you wouldn’t be in this state. You drove Didi away in 1997,” Kalyan Banerjee said.
Priyanka Gandhi intervened again, saying that Mamata Banerjee was treated well in the Congress.
“Rajiv (Gandhi) ji respected Mamata (Banerjee) ji lot,” she said.
Banerjee agreed, saying, “I know. Rajiv ji used to like Didi a lot, he really respected her.”
He also pointed out that the Congress later got together with the CPM, against whom they were fighting.
Priyanka Gandhi stood there nodding during the exchange.
A fellow Congress leader then pointed towards something, following which Priyanka, nodding in Banerjee’s direction, left the scene. The MPs accompanying her followed Gandhi.
Kalyan Banerjee, still wearing the poster around his neck, turned towards reporters with a smile, keeping the focus on the political confrontation surrounding the rebel Trinamool MPs and the defection issue.
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