A little-known political outfit that fielded four candidates in the 2023 Tripura Assembly polls with the slogan “reject political turncoats to save your rights” was catapulted into national limelight on Sunday after a rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) comprising 20 Lok Sabha MPs announced its merger with it.

Records show that the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), the party in question, contested from four seats — Chawamanu, Ambassa, Karamchara and Kailashahar — in the 2023 Tripura polls, with its candidates finishing either behind NOTA or securing only a few votes more.

The party’s campaign posters carried the message: “To save your rights, reject political turncoats. Support social workers, not political personalities”, urging voters to press the symbol of a pen nib, which appeared to have been allotted to it as a Registered Unrecognised Political Party.

Its Chawamanu candidate, Barjeda Tripura, who secured 536 votes in the election, was surprised when PTI contacted him after the merger announcement.

“I contested the polls in 2023. What has happened now, three years later?” he asked, expressing disbelief after being told that a group of Lok Sabha MPs has joined the party that had fielded him.

Barjeda said he is a daily wage labourer. “In 2023, a person called Krishna Debbarma reached out to me about the election. So I contested. Many years ago, I was a supporter of the Congress,” he told PTI.

Debbarma could not be reached for a comment.

Barjeda’s election affidavit shows that he was 62 years old in 2023, had studied till Class 8, declared assets worth Rs 4 lakh and listed his profession as that of a social worker.

The Chawamanu seat was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Sambhu Lal Chakma, who defeated TIPRA Motha’s Hangsa Kumar Tripura by 2,899 votes. Barjeda finished fifth with 536 votes, narrowly ahead of the NOTA tally of 500.

The other three NCPI candidates contested the polls from Karamchara, Ambassa and Kailashahar. While Karamchara and Ambassa were won by the TIPRA Motha, the Congress won Kailashahar.

The development came as the TMC rebellion appeared to reach a crescendo on Sunday, with dissident MPs announcing their merger with the NCPI and meeting Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to seek separate seating arrangements in the House.

After meeting the speaker, rebel MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said two-thirds of the TMC’s Lok Sabha members have submitted a letter to Birla, seeking recognition as a separate group.

“Two-thirds of the TMC MPs have given a letter to the speaker for a separate seating arrangement. We will merge with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India and support the NDA,” Ghosh Dastidar said.

Senior TMC leader and Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the dissident camp has already merged with the NCPI, describing it as a regional party.

Registered unrecognised political parties are parties that are registered with the Election Commission (EC) but are yet to meet the criteria to be recognised as state or national parties.