Calcutta High Court’s Justice Krishna Rao on Thursday posed a pertinent question on whether West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose was right in recognising Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of Opposition in the House without the consent of the Trinamool Congress after his expulsion from the party. He was hearing Trinamool’s challenge to the recognition of Ritabrata as LoP instead of the official Mamata Banerjee group’s nominee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay. Ritabrata had the numbers—58 of the Trinamool’s 80 legislators—but had been expelled by ‘Didi’ a day before the rebel group propped him as its legislative leader. Justice Rao also sought to know if the Speaker had issued any formal order recognising the LoP, and adjourned the matter to June 16, two days before the Assembly is due to convene.
The judge’s poser stemmed from a Supreme Court case law set in the Shiv Sena split verdict. Writing for a five-judge Constitution bench in 2023, the then Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud ruled that it is the political party—and not the legislature party—that is authorised to appoint the leader and the whip in the House. Assuming the 2023 verdict holds ground, it could arrest similar defections and put a question mark on the merger of seven out of AAP’s 10 Rajya Sabha members with the BJP. Besides, there is little clarity on the split in the Trinamool parliamentary party.
Meanwhile, Trinamool national general secretary and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee is in a pickle, as at least seven rebel MLAs complained to the Assembly Secretariat alleging their signatures had been forged on the party’s resolution appointing Sobhandeb as LoP. Abhishek was on Thursday grilled by the state Criminal Investigation Department in the signature forgery case.
Widespread discontent against Abhishek’s authoritarian leadership is the focal point of Trinamool’s dramatic disintegration, which is also blamed on the ruling BJP’s intimidation, coercion and inducement. However, Mamata continues to command respect, including from the rebels. It’s up to her to quickly take corrective action to stem the legislative haemorrhage. Her exploratory exercise at the INDIA bloc meeting in Delhi—where Congress leader Sonia Gandhi offered a warm hug—was the starting point of repairing the bridges she had burnt during her long tenure as chief minister.
