Congress leader Jairam Ramesh accused Home Minister Amit Shah of "masterminding" the "illegal" merger of 20 rebel TMC MPs with the Nationalist Citizens Party. "A desperate Home Minister...who's an absolute disgrace to the position...[took] Indian democracy to new lows in a shameless manner," he said. "This [is] to engineer a two-thirds majority for the NDA in Lok Sabha," he added.