The Trinamul Congress, with its 13 members, would support the Aam Aadmi Party against the BJP when the central ordinance on control of services in Delhi reaches the Rajya Sabha for ratification.

Making the announcement after an hour-long meeting with two Aam Admi Party (AAP) chief ministers, Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi and Bhagwant Mann from Punjab, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to all Opposition parties across the country to “come together and defeat the BJP in Rajya Sabha” since this would be an “ideal opportunity to send a strong message ahead of the 2024 general elections”.

The Central ordinance sets up a National Capital Civil Service Authority which essentially overturns a significant Supreme Court order passed on May 11 giving control of services, excluding those related to police, public order and land, to the elected government in Delhi and instead extends power to the lieutenant governor to make transfers and postings of bureaucrats in the national Capital. The ordinance would have to be passed in both houses of Parliament within six months of promulgation to make it a law.

Banerjee was the second leader to offer support to AAP after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar pledged his backing last week with his five Rajya Sabha MPs. While the BJP currently has 93 MPs in the Council of States, the Congress forms the largest chunk of Opposition MPs with 31 seats. The TMC is the second largest Opposition party followed by AAP and DMK with 10 seats each.

Amid fervent speculations over the Congress’s position on the issue, party’s senior leader KC Venugopal tweeted on Monday: "The Congress Party has not taken any decision on the issue of the Ordinance brought against the SC judgment on the powers of the Government of NCT of Delhi with respect to appointment of officers. It will consult its state units & other like-minded parties on the same."

But even if the Congress decides to support the move against the ordinance, senior Parliamentarians from the Opposition camp confirmed that the support of two regional parties, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal and Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress with nine Rajya Sabha MPs each, would be critical to Kejriwal and without which he has little chance of winning the floor division.

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On Tuesday, at the Bengal state secretariat Nabanna where the AAP delegation called on Banerjee as part of the party’s efforts to drum up support from the opposition camp, Kejriwal called the ordinance a “naked display of arrogance and selfishness by the BJP-ruled Centre” and declared that stopping it from being converted into a law in the upper house of the Parliament would serve as a “semi-final to the 2024 elections”. The delegation of AAP leaders, besides the two chief ministers, comprised Delhi education minister Atishi Marlena and Rajya Sabha MPs Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh.

The three Opposition chief ministers in one frame, at a time when an overt nation-wide hustle of Opposition parties is on to stand on a unified platform against the BJP for the forthcoming general elections, provided the yet another opportunity to both Banerjee and Kejriwal to showcase Opposition outreach activities.

Bhagwant Mann, Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee The Telegraph picture

“The Centre issued a simple notification and stripped the Delhi government of its powers after we formed the government in 2015. The people of Delhi fought a legal battle for eight years and won. But our eight years of struggle was wiped out in eight days by the Centre by means of its ordinance which defied a Supreme Court order. The ordinance was promulgated on the day the Supreme Court broke for its summer vacation to avoid a stay on it,” Kejriwal said.

“The BJP has made a joke of our democracy and has adapted three ways to disturb Opposition forces. First, they take recourse to horse trading to topple non-BJP governments and form their own government. Second, at places where they fail to form governments this manner they push central agencies behind opposition MPs and MLAs and intimidate them, break them and eventually form their own government. Thirdly, if both these tactics fail then they make wrong use of the law and use the Governor’s office to create administrative roadblocks before the non-BJP governments,” he continued.

Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann recounted his experience of having to move the Supreme Court to convene the budget session of state Assembly. “If they want the 30-odd governors and one Prime Minister to run this country, then why go through the façade of spending crores to conduct elections? This has now boiled down to the question of saving this country and its Constitution. Parties may have their differences but they must realize they would exist only if this country does,” Mann said.

Asking “aggrieved MPs within the BJP” to vote against the ordinance, Banerjee dubbed the BJP’s double-engine government model a “terrible engine”. “We have decided to fight the BJP, no matter what. We will stand beside all Opposition ruled states. They have six months left with them and who knows, there could be a miracle even before that.”