Trinamool Congress and Telugu Desam Party fight over ground floor office in Parliament

NEW DELHI: Numbers determine everything, even real estate, inside Parliament, or do they? The Trinamool Congress, with a posse of 34 MPs and a letter of allotment to a ground floor office in Parliament occupied by the Telugu Desam Party, however, found that a smaller force attached to the ruling party could still stop it in its tracks.

"We have been allotted this room by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on August 6, and as per that, TDP should have vacated this room," said Trinamool leader Sudip Bandopadhyaya.

He along with a few MPs from his party proceeded to remove TDP’s nameplate only to be offered resistance by TDP MPs. The watch and ward staff of Parliament had to intervene and order was only restored when TC MPs withdrew and TDP leaders replaced their nameplate.

Parties with a large number of MPs are allotted offices on the ground floor, while smaller groups are accommodated on the third floor.

Trinamool has been demanding a ground floor room throughout the 2009-14 period, but didn’t quite manage to swing matters in its favour, and usually congregated in the railway minister’s room on the ground floor for meetings, since the ministry had been held by party members in the last government for most part.

In 2014, however, as the fourthlargest party, they feel it was high time their status was matched by real estate. TDP on the other hand had managed to hold on to the room through good fortune and bad, since 1984, when it was the largest opposition party with 32 seats. "We have held on to this office when we had just five MPs, there is no way we will give up; now we have 16 MPs and we are a constituent of NDA," said a TDP MP. The party has appealed against an eviction notice.

Not all disputes end at the court of the Speaker, however. BJD with 20 MPs had been allotted the office occupied by JD(U), which now has only two Lok Sabha MPs.