How a Party Split Becomes Official

On June 11, Justice Krishna Rao of the Calcutta High Court asked the question at the center of an unfolding political crisis.

Can the Speaker recognise a rebel leader as the LoP without the consent of a political party? — Justice Krishna Rao

A week later, the same court refused to grant an interim stay, allowing the appointment to stand through the budget session. ^[1] The question had been asked. The sequence — from the agency investigations that preceded the defections to the Speaker's recognition and now the court's refusal to intervene — was not halted. The investigations had been running for months. In West Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate interrogated TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for eleven hours over a school jobs scam in mid-June. ^[2] The agency had already petitioned the Supreme Court in February to open criminal proceedings against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, alleging she obstructed federal search operations during a coal-scam probe. ^[3] In April, the ED raided AAP leaders across Punjab, Haryana, and Chandigarh — a Rajya Sabha MP and a state minister among them. ^[4] In May, the agency raided the residences of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the CPI-M, triggering violent protests. ^[5] Across the retrieved record, no parallel ED or CBI action against any BJP figure appears. ^[6][7] Then came the defections. In West Bengal, 58 of the TMC's MLAs backed rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee, overriding Mamata Banerjee's nominee for Leader of the Opposition. ^[8] In Maharashtra, six Shiv Sena (UBT) Lok Sabha MPs defected to the Eknath Shinde faction on June 16 — meeting the two-thirds threshold to avoid disqualification under anti-defection law — and promptly met Speaker Om Birla to request recognition as a separate group. ^[9] The two sequences were not sequential; they ran in parallel. The West Bengal machinery was already in motion when Operation Tiger's defections began: the ED's Supreme Court plea against Mamata Banerjee dated to February, and the TMC's post-election rebellion had erupted in early May. ^[10][3] Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant made the connection explicit on June 9, a week before his own party lost six MPs — drawing on the 2022 split that fractured the Shiv Sena and delivered the state government to the BJP's alliance.

Whatever is happening right now in TMC, we have bitterly experienced it in Maharashtra. — Arvind Sawant

TMC's Kalyan Banerjee named the alleged mechanism directly.

Today their leader is Narendra Modi. They have become BJP. — Kalyan Banerjee

The Speakers then ratified what the defections had set in motion. In West Bengal, Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose recognized Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of the Opposition, and the state government guaranteed the minority loyalist bloc separate time allotments — the Speaker's office actively structuring the outcome rather than remaining neutral. ^[8] In Maharashtra, Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared the Shinde faction the sole legitimate Shiv Sena — a cabinet minister adjudicating an intra-party dispute through executive pronouncement. ^[11] Eknath Shinde released ₹18 crore in development funds to the new members. ^[9] Which returned the matter to the courts. The Calcutta High Court had questioned the Speaker's authority — and declined to stay the appointment. ^[12][1] The same court admitted Mamata Banerjee's election petition challenging Suvendu Adhikari's victory, but the presiding justice, Gaurang Kanth, disclosed that his elder brother is a BJP national spokesperson. ^[13] The CID, meanwhile, opened an investigation into the TMC's own internal nomination papers, citing signature irregularities — a criminal probe deployed against the party's attempt to name its own leader. ^[1] The judiciary has pushed back — but at individual points, not against the sequence itself. The Supreme Court granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Pawan Khera in a defamation case filed by the Assam Chief Minister. ^[14]

the right to personal liberty is a cherished fundamental right, and any deprivation thereof must be justified on a higher threshold, particularly where the surrounding circumstances may indicate the presence of political overtones. — Supreme Court of India

The Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled that sloganeering against the government would not be sufficient to bring sedition charges. ^[15] A trial court that discharged Arvind Kejriwal had sharp words for the agency that brought the case. ^[16]

Due to the absence of any admissible evidence, the prosecution case is rendered legally infirm, unsustainable and unfit to proceed any further in law — Jitendra Singh

Each intervention was real. None arrested the pattern. The ED appealed Kejriwal's acquittal, arguing the trial court had overstepped its authority and seeking to expunge the adverse remarks. ^[17] The CBI filed a 974-page appeal arguing the discharge was legally unsound. ^[16] The agencies were not only appealing outcomes — they were trying to silence judicial criticism of their methods. And the Supreme Court stayed a Delhi High Court order that had quashed the Lokpal's sanction for CBI to file a chargesheet against TMC MP Mahua Moitra, allowing the case to proceed. ^[18] The judiciary sometimes enabled the sequence, not merely declined to halt it. The record also complicates any claim that the sequence is purely state-engineered. The TMC's internal rebellion followed a landslide electoral defeat on May 4 — leaders like Manoj Tiwary publicly blamed corruption, and MP Dev congratulated the BJP. ^[10] Some of the defection wave was organic post-defeat dissent. In Telangana, the Speaker dismissed disqualification petitions against ten MLAs who defected from BRS to the ruling Congress — the same institutional logic, deployed by a non-BJP government — one day before the Supreme Court was to hear contempt petitions over his delay. ^[19] The sequence is not exclusively BJP-owned. What the first half of 2026 has made visible is a recurring institutional path: agency investigation, defection, Speaker recognition, judicial non-stay. The courts function as a valve — releasing pressure at individual points without stopping the flow. Whether that makes them a valve or a safeguard depends on whether the sequence is a playbook or a pattern. The opposition alleges the former. The record, for now, can only establish the latter.