KOLKATA: A day after floating his new political platform, the Janata Unnayan Party (JUP), the suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Humayun Kabir may face action from Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
On Tuesday, the Speaker said he may summon the rebel MLA to the Assembly to clarify his present political status as a legislator.
“Humayun has already been suspended by the leadership on charge of violating party discipline. Documents related to his suspension are lying with the Assembly. But he has announced the formation of his new political party from Murshidabad on Monday without informing anything about the move to the Assembly. He has to clarify with which party he is associated,” Biman said.
“We will also look into the issue if any complaint related to the anti-defection law against him is lodged with us,” the Speaker added.
Humayun, the Trinamool Congress legislator from Bharatpur, was suspended by the party leadership on charges of anti-party activities, including allegedly making communal statements and laying the foundation stone of a mosque at Beldanga in Murshidabad district, modelled after the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.
On Monday, he announced the formation of his new party, JUP.
Addressing a public meeting in Beldanga on Monday, he named eight candidates whom his new party would field in the 2026 Assembly elections in the state.
Significantly, he withdrew on Tuesday the name of Nisha Chatterjee, whom he had announced as the party’s candidate from the Ballygunge Assembly constituency in south Kolkata for the forthcoming elections. He said he was unhappy after coming to know about her photographs that became viral on social media posts. He has decided to field a Muslim candidate from the Ballygunge seat, which is a minority-dominated belt.
Humayun said he would contest the Assembly polls from two seats, Rejinagar and Beldanga in Murshidabad, and would release the names of other candidates of his party who would contest the forthcoming elections in the state.
The JUP would field candidates in 90 Assembly constituencies across the state, and his party would be a decisive factor in the elections, he claimed.
“People have already dethroned the Congress. Now they will also bring the Trinamool Congress and the BJP down from power in the state and at the Centre respectively. My party will fight for the cause of the common people in the state,” the JUP chairman said.
He also said that ‘table’ would be the symbol of his party and that he would apply to the Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking recognition for his new political platform. The ‘rose’ may also be proposed as his party symbol as an option if the national poll body does not recognise the ‘table’.
In the 2016 Assembly elections, he had contested as an Independent candidate using the same symbol.