KOLKATA: With altercations between two rival Trinamool Congress camps of the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and LoP Ritabrata Banerjee, a fracas erupted in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
The Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose suspended Kunal Ghosh, a Trinamool Congress MLA belonging to the Mamata Banerjee faction, when he got involved in a heated exchange of words with his rival camp legislator Akhrujjaman, chief whip of the Opposition party led by Ritabrata in the Assembly.
Kunal was dragged out of the House by marshals with the directive of the Speaker. The pandemonium happened in the House when Akhrujjaman started to address during a discussion on the Budget demands for the Bengal Home and Hill Affairs departments in the House on Wednesday.
Kunal was found asking, “Why are you deleting my name from the list of speakers in the proceedings?” Without responding to Kunal’s question, Akhrujjaman continued his Address in the House.
Three Trinamool MLAs, including the LoP Ritabrata, Firhad Hakim and Javel Khan, belonging to the breakaway group, were also seen sitting beside Akhrujjaman when he was delivering his speech.
Kunal was seen repeatedly raising the same question standing in front of him.
Several MLAs of the ruling BJP and ministers like Shankar Ghosh, state parliamentary affairs minister, and Jagannath Chatterjee, higher education minister, came down to Kunal and requested him to sit down on his bench.
The Speaker also asked him to stop making the same questions repeatedly and go to his own seat. But he allegedly ignored them.
The Speaker was also seen threatening him, saying, “I will be forced to get you out of the House, Kunalbabu, if you don’t stop this and sit in your own place.”
But he was seen still standing in front of the LoP and chief whip.
Finally, with instructions of the Speaker, marshals were found trying to bring the MLA from Beliaghata out of the House. He got involved in a scuffle with the marshals and fell on the ground inside the House.
Marshals dragged him out of the House, prompting other MLAs loyal to Mamata Banerjee's camp of Kalighat to stage a walkout of the House in protest against the incident, which prompted the chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, to react.
“Everything has its limit. We were also in the Opposition bench, but this kind of indecent act is beyond all, which can’t be tolerated,” the chief minister said in the House.
The state industry minister Tapas Roy proposed that the Speaker suspend Kunal till the ongoing session ends.
Suvendu said, “I would propose to suspend him for today only. Let him come tomorrow. Steps will be taken if he does the same thing again in the House. There is no need to make him a celebrity by suspending him.”
The Trinamool MLAs in the Mamata Banerjee faction allege that the chief whip of the Opposition party is intentionally deleting their names from the list of speakers.
"He is giving priority to the legislators belonging to Ritabrata Banerjee camp," they alleged.
Earlier in the day, Trinamool MLA from Kaliganj in Nadia district Alifa Ahmed complained that Opposition legislators who had prepared for the debate were not being allowed to speak despite their names having been submitted.
Responding to the allegation, Suvendu said the Assembly could not resolve internal differences within the Opposition.
"I was the Leader of the Opposition for five years. The established procedure is that the opposition chief whip submits the list of speakers to the treasury bench chief whip, following which the Speaker calls members accordingly. If there is any dispute within your own house, settle it there. The chief minister or the assembly cannot resolve your internal quarrels," he said.
