Party With ₹75 in the Bank Now Has 20 MPs. This Is How India's Anti-Defection Law Actually Works.

Benami Politics

In Indian real estate, benami means buying property in someone else's name. On paper, it belongs to them. In reality, it belongs to you. Parliament passed the Benami Transactions Act to criminalise this — the penalty is confiscation.

In Indian politics, the same transaction has no law against it. You find a registered party nobody has heard of. You park twenty MPs inside it. The party "supports" the ruling coalition. The MPs avoid disqualification. And twenty electoral mandates — given by voters to one party — are transferred to another without a single voter being consulted.

On June 14, 2026, this is precisely what happened.

What Happened on June 14

Twenty rebel TMC Lok Sabha MPs, led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, met at Union Minister Bhupender Yadav's residence. BJP MP Biplab Deb from Tripura was present. After the meeting, the group went to Speaker Om Birla and declared: they were merging with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).

"We, 20 MPs, have now merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India," Dastidar announced. "We will support the NDA."

If the Speaker recognises the merger, the NCPI — overnight — becomes the second-largest NDA constituent in the Lok Sabha. Bigger than TDP (16 MPs). Bigger than JD(U).

Who Is the NCPI? Every Verifiable Fact.

The Squirrels examined the Election Commission filings, audited accounts, social media history, and electoral record of the NCPI. Here is every verifiable data point.

Founded: Late 2022. Registered with the ECI on January 20, 2023 — weeks before the Tripura Assembly elections.

Registration status: Registered Unrecognised Political Party (RUPP). Not a recognised state or national party.

Registered address: Howrah, West Bengal — not Tripura, despite contesting only in Tripura.

President: Shewly Kundu. Listed as an advocate at the Calcutta High Court.

Vice-President: Uttiyo Kundu. Her husband. Editor of a Bengali newspaper called Jago Biswa. The newspaper's address is also the party's registered address.

Organisational Secretary: Shantanu Dey.

Electoral record: Contested 3 seats in the 2023 Tripura Assembly elections (a fourth nomination was rejected after scrutiny). Combined votes across all three candidates: 822. In Kailashahar constituency, the NCPI candidate polled 286 votes. NOTA polled 537. The NCPI received fewer votes than the people who voted for nobody.

Finances: Total donations received: ₹1,13,075. Closing cash balance as of March 31, 2023: ₹75. General fund deficit: ₹425.

2023 campaign slogan: On the NCPI's own campaign posters, published on its Facebook page: "Protect your rights by rejecting political turncoats."

Current elected representatives (before June 14): Zero MPs. Zero MLAs. Zero councillors.

Current elected representatives (after June 14): Twenty Lok Sabha MPs.

The Detail That Should Stop You

The NCPI's organisational secretary, Shantanu Dey, told The Wire that he opposes the merger.

"If the party were to merge with the BJP, I would have no problem. We admire Prime Minister Modi, and have supported the BJP in the past. But these TMC leaders, you know their record is not good — corruption, Saradha, Narada, they are named in all of it."

The party's vice-president, Uttiyo Kundu, posted a photograph on Facebook with Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on May 13 — one month before the merger was announced.

A party whose own secretary opposes the merger. Whose vice-president was photographed with the BJP's Bengal chief a month in advance. Whose slogan was "reject political turncoats." And which now has twenty MPs.

The Legal Framework: Can This Survive the Constitution?

The Tenth Schedule of the Constitution — the anti-defection law — was added in 1985 to prevent what the framers called "the evil of political defections." If a member leaves their party or votes against its directive, they face disqualification.

But Paragraph 4 provides an exception for mergers.

The Two Conditions

Paragraph 4(1): A member is protected from disqualification if their "original political party" merges with another party.

Paragraph 4(2): The merger is "deemed" to have taken place if two-thirds of the members of the legislature party agree.

The Constitutional Question

Are these two conditions conjunctive — meaning both must be satisfied — or can they operate independently?

If conjunctive: The TMC as a political party must merge with the NCPI. That has not happened. Abhishek Banerjee wrote to the Speaker stating that the TMC is "single and indivisible." Mamata Banerjee has not consented. The first condition fails.

If independent: The legislature party can declare a merger on its own. Twenty of twenty-eight is more than two-thirds. The second condition is satisfied.

What the Supreme Court Has Said

The court has answered this question — twice.

Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary (2023) — the Maharashtra Shiv Sena case. The five-judge Constitution Bench held that the political party and the legislature party are distinct entities. The legislature party cannot operate autonomously from the political party. The Speaker must verify the will of the political party, not just count heads in the legislature party.

Mayawati v. Markandeya Chand (1998) — the court rejected the argument that "political party" can be read as "legislature party."

Applied to the NCPI Merger

The TMC — the original political party — has not merged with the NCPI. Twenty MPs have. Under the Subhash Desai principle, the first condition fails. The merger is constitutionally vulnerable.

But the first adjudicator is not the Supreme Court. It is the Speaker. Om Birla will verify the signatures and decide whether to recognise the merger. The court enters only on judicial review — which can take months or years.

And by then, as every precedent shows, the political facts on the ground have already changed.

The Four-Time Pattern: Same Paragraph, Same Playbook

Four times in four years. Same loophole. Same constitutional provision. Same outcome: defection first, adjudication later.

In 2003, Parliament recognised that Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule — the "split" provision — was being systematically abused. The 91st Constitutional Amendment deleted it.

But they kept Paragraph 4. And Paragraph 4 has become the new Paragraph 3. The same abuse, operating through a different provision.

The NCPI Merger Adds a New Dimension

The Shiv Sena and NCP splits involved factions claiming to be the "real" party. The TMC-NCPI merger introduces something different: a shell entity.

The rebels are not claiming to be the real TMC. They are merging with a party that had no elected representatives, no electoral base, no organisational presence, and — as of its last audited accounts — ₹75 in its bank. The NCPI is not a political party in any functional sense. It is a registered vehicle being used to park defecting MPs while maintaining the legal fiction of a "merger."

This creates a template. Any group of defecting legislators can now identify a registered unrecognised party — there are over 2,500 such parties on the ECI's rolls — merge into it, and claim Paragraph 4 protection. The defectors avoid disqualification. The shell party gains instant parliamentary strength. And the ruling coalition grows without an election.

The Democratic Question

The voters of Barasat, Howrah, Murshidabad, Diamond Harbour — they voted for the TMC. They voted for Mamata Banerjee's party. For the grasshopper symbol. They did not vote for the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. They have never heard of it.

Their elected representatives have now been transferred — without consultation, without a by-election, without any democratic process — into a party that polled fewer votes than NOTA.

If the merger is recognised, the 20 MPs will sit in the Lok Sabha as NCPI members, supporting the NDA. The voters who elected them as TMC candidates have no recourse — no recall mechanism, no re-election requirement, no consent process.

This is not a question of whether the BJP benefits or the TMC loses. It is a question of whether an electoral mandate can be transferred from one party to another through a constitutional provision, using a shell entity, without the electorate's involvement.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the NCPI?

The Nationalist Citizens Party of India is a registered unrecognised political party founded in late 2022. It is run by Shewly Kundu (president) and Uttiyo Kundu (vice-president), a husband-wife team based in Howrah, West Bengal. It contested 3 seats in the 2023 Tripura Assembly elections, polling a combined 822 votes. Its closing bank balance was ₹75.

Is the TMC-NCPI merger legal?

It is constitutionally contested. The Supreme Court's 2023 Subhash Desai ruling held that the political party and the legislature party are distinct — meaning the TMC as a party must consent to the merger, not just its MPs. The TMC has explicitly stated it is "single and indivisible." However, the first decision lies with the Speaker, and judicial review follows later.

Has this happened before?

Yes. Shiv Sena (2022), NCP (2023), AAP (2026), and now TMC (2026) have all involved Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule being used to facilitate defections through the merger route.

What happens next?

Speaker Om Birla will verify the signatures of the 20 MPs. If accepted, the NCPI becomes the second-largest NDA constituent. The TMC loyalist faction is expected to challenge the merger, potentially reaching the Supreme Court.

Conclusion

The data on the NCPI is not ambiguous.

A party with ₹75 in the bank, zero elected representatives, 822 total votes in its only election, whose own organisational secretary opposes the merger, and whose campaign slogan was "reject political turncoats" — now has twenty Lok Sabha MPs and is the second-largest NDA constituent.

The legal question is clear. The Supreme Court in Subhash Desai held that the political party and the legislature party are distinct. The TMC has not consented to this merger. On that principle, the merger is constitutionally vulnerable.

The political pattern is equally clear. Four times in four years — Shiv Sena, NCP, AAP, TMC — the same Paragraph 4 has been used as the legal mechanism for engineering defections. Each time, the defection happens first and the court rules later. Each time, the political facts on the ground are already irreversible by the time the judiciary acts.

In real estate, we have the Benami Transactions Act. You cannot buy property in someone else's name. The penalty is confiscation.

In politics, we have no such law. You can find a registered party with ₹75 in its bank. Park twenty MPs inside. And transfer twenty electoral mandates — given by voters to a different party — without asking a single voter.

If Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule protects this, then Paragraph 4 has become Paragraph 3 by another name. And the "evil" the anti-defection law was designed to cure is using the Constitution as its shield.