Tag: Bengal Assembly

  • BJP MLAs stage protest in Bengal Assembly on CAG report, allege “misappropriation” of MGNREGA funds

    Kolkata: The BJP MLAs on Tuesday tried to move an adjournment and demanded discussion on CAG report in the West Bengal assembly, which was turned downed by the Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay on Tuesday. Following the refusal, BJP MLAs staged a protest on the CAG report and alleged “misappropriation” of MGNREGA funds.

    “We were not even allowed to read our adjournment motion. We were not allowed to even discuss the CAG report in the assembly. The CAG report is not about advance adjustment as said by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee but also finds mention of multiple fraud accounts which have been discovered,” Leader of Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari told mediapersons.

    Meanwhile, West Bengal unit of BJP has decided to meet Governor CV Ananda Bose on CAG report issue on March 9 and urge him to send recommendations to CAG for filing FIR against state government on the issue.Trinamool Supremo Mamata Banerjee has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently on the CAG report issue and non-submission of utilization letter, which was raised by BJP state President Sukanta Majumdar. The BJP on January 31 cited a CAG report to allege that “mother of all scams” to the tune of about Rs 2 lakh crore had taken place in the Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal.

    The Speaker turned down the demand stating that the issue has no justification to discuss in the House, following which BJP MLAs protested inside the House.

    Anti-government slogans were shouted by the BJP MLAs- Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, Chief Whip Manoj Tigga and Siligurj legislator Shankar Ghosh among others. They were carrying placards and protested outside the South gate of the assembly.“CAG reports has brought out details of many fake accounts, fund diversion issues, central government guidelines violation, misappropriation of funds. It shows corruption and theft of Trinamool Congress government,” Adhikari said.State Finance Minister (MoS) Chandrima Bhattacharya said, “There is no scope of discussion on CAG in the assembly. The report is from 2003 to 2021. The central government did not receive Utilization Certificates (UC) but have released funds. How were the funds released? How come the Centre announced that Bengal was the topmost performer in MGNREGA? And now the funds have been blocked.”

    After hearing that Mamata Banerjee will pay 21lakh workers under MGNREGA, BJP has lost their minds and made all these allegations,” Bhattacharya said.

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  • Bengal LoP, suspended from assembly, protests after being prevented from entering chamber

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who has been suspended from the West Bengal Assembly for the entire session till the House is prorogued, on Monday staged a sit-in protest on the premises after he was prevented from entering his chamber.

    Adhikari, along with four other BJP MLAs, was suspended by the speaker from the assembly after legislators from the saffron party and the TMC came to blows inside the House on the last day of the budget session in March over the Birbhum killings.

    Prorogation is discontinuing a session of Parliament or a Legislative Assembly without dissolving it. When Adhikari, the Nandigram MLA, came to the assembly, he was prevented from entering his chamber citing the suspension notice.

    Infuriated, he and some other BJP legislators sat on a demonstration near the statue of B R Ambedkar on the premises. “This is autocratic. For the first time, an LoP has been stopped from entering his chamber in the assembly. The entire country knows how I was suspended in an undemocratic manner. As I am not allowed to enter my chamber, I would carry out my official work from this spot every day. This will be my office till I get to enter my chamber,” he told reporters.

    Speaker Biman Banerjee could not be contacted for a comment.

    Senior TMC leader and party chief whip in the assembly, Nirmal Ghosh, said Adhikari should stop creating a scene as he is well aware that a suspended member is not allowed to enter the assembly premises.

    “Any member who has been suspended is generally not allowed to enter the assembly premises. He (Adhikari) is very well aware of it. He is just doing drama to get some mileage in the media,” he said.

    Adhikari, along with BJP legislators Dipak Burman, Shankar Ghosh, Manoj Tigga and Narahari Mahato, was on March 28 suspended for the entire session till the House is prorogued.

    The House had plunged into chaos on that day as MLAs of both sides engaged in fisticuffs, leading to the hospitalisation of some of the legislators.

    The incident happened after BJP MLAs trooped to the well, demanding a statement by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the “worsening” law and order situation in the wake of Birbhum killings, in which nine people (eight at that time) died of burn injuries after assailants threw petrol bombs at several houses in Bogtui village near Rampurhat on March 21 following the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.

    Even as the speaker tried to pacify the BJP MLAs, who continued sloganeering, a war of words broke out with legislators of the treasury bench which eventually led to the ugly scuffle.

    The incident brought back memories of opposition Left and ruling TMC legislators trading blows in December 2012 on the floor of the House, leading to injuries on both sides.

  • SC rues practice of delay by Speakers in deciding disqualification pleas

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday rued the “general practice” of Speakers delaying decisions on pleas seeking disqualification of lawmakers and the subsequent arguments that courts should “stay away”, while hoping that the West Bengal Assembly Speaker would decide on such a plea against Mukul Roy who defected to TMC from BJP after the state polls.

    The apex court’s observations came while hearing two separate appeals filed by West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee and its Secretary and the Returning Officer against the Calcutta High Court’s order.

    The high court asked Banerjee to take a decision on the petition for disqualification of Roy as a member of the House by October 7.

    A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and Hima Kohli on Monday expressed hope that the Speaker will take a decision on the disqualification plea against Roy on the claim that he has defected to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after being elected on a BJP ticket and fixed the pleas for hearing in January next year.

    “There is a general practice of speakers delaying the hearing and decisions on disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule of the constitution, there are so many cases where there is a delay by the Speaker. But, we are told that you stay away and let the Speaker decide,” the bench said.

    Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Banerjee, said the courts need to interfere in cases where there are “egregious delays” but the instant case does not warrant such an interference as several adjournments have been sought by BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in the matter.

    Singhvi referred to another case in which a plea was moved by DMK seeking a direction to then Tamil Nadu Speaker to decide the plea for disqualification of 11 AIADMK lawmakers who had voted against the then Chief Minister K Palaniswami during the 2017 confidence vote.

    The term of the Assembly expired but the issue could not be decided, he said.

    The apex court, which did not issue notice on the appeals, took note of Singhvi’s submissions that the disqualification plea is scheduled for hearing on December 21 before the Speaker.

    “The petition for disqualification filed under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution is now listed on December 21. We hope the Speaker proceeds with the hearing of the matter and decide the matter in accordance with law,” the bench said and fixed the case for hearing in January next year.

    Adhikari, leader of the Opposition, on June 17 had filed the petition before the Speaker seeking Roy’s disqualification.

    Ambika Roy, BJP MLA of the state, had moved the high court in July challenging Roy’s election as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and prayed for nomination of an opposition member to the post as per tradition.

    At the outset, Singhvi assailed the high court’s decision saying that it did not leave anything to be decided by the Speaker who is supposed to hear both the sides and moreover, the courts cannot “micro-manage the calendar of the speaker”.

    “If we were to micro-manage by now there would be an order. We are just trying to cull out of you the status of proceedings,” the bench said.

    Singhvi said the high court adjourned the hearing on October 7 after being apprised that an appeal has been filed in the apex court.

    Singhvi said the high court has already held that the appointment of Roy as head of the PAC was part of the assembly proceedings.

    “Good, bad or indifferent, the Speaker is the persona designata,” he argued.

    But there should not be a delay in deciding such a plea, the bench said.

    Earlier, the high court had said in its order that the issue pertaining to disqualification of Roy as a member of the Assembly is correlated with him being the chairman of the PAC.

    It had said a petition filed for Roy’s disqualification is pending before the Speaker for more than three months, the maximum period fixed in a judgement of the Supreme Court, for decision thereof.

    “Before we proceed further in the matter let the respondent No.1 (the Speaker) place before us the order passed in the petition filed for disqualification of respondent No.2 (Mukul Roy) as Member of the Legislative Assembly,” the high court had said in its order.

    The bench adjourned the matter to October 7 for further hearing, stating, “In case of failure this Court will decide further course of action to be taken in the matter.”

    However, the counsel for the Speaker, on October 7, told the high court that an appeal has been filed in the apex court against its direction leading to the adjournment of the proceedings.

  • Bengal Assembly Speaker can file affidavit in PIL seeking Mukul Roy’s removal as PAC head: Calcutta HC

    The bench said that the speaker and other respondents, in the meantime, may file an affidavit if they wish to do so.

  • Despite multiple defections, no disqualification recorded in Bengal Assembly in past decade

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Once a reviled practice in West Bengal, the “Aaya Ram Gaya Ram” culture has made deep inroads into the state as several MLAs, in the past decade, were seen frequently crossing the floor, with none facing any action under the anti-defection law.

    Speaker Biman Banerjee agreed that there was no instance of MLA disqualification in the last ten years on the ground of defection, but did not elaborate further.

    “It is true that the Assembly has not recorded any case of disqualification since 2011 for switching camps. But I would not get into details,” the three-time speaker told PTI.

    The latest flashpoint is the defection of veteran leader Mukul Roy, who won the March-April Assembly polls on a BJP ticket but switched over to the TMC earlier this month.

    The saffron party, on its part, has filed a plea before the Speaker seeking Roy’s disqualification, only to receive flak from the ruling TMC, which said that MPs Sisir Adhikari and Sunil Mondal, who had joined the BJP ahead of assembly polls, should first quit the membership of Lok Sabha.

    Since the ascendance of the TMC in Bengal, switching parties, a practice looked down upon prior to 2010, has almost become commonplace, according to political pundits.

    Over four dozen legislators from the Congress, Left Front and the TMC switched sides in the 15th and 16th Legislative Assembly — between 2011 and 2021, they said.

    In the 16th Assembly alone, around 24 of the 44 Congress MLAs and eight of the 32 Left MLAs had crossed over to either the TMC or the BJP.

    However, only 12 disqualification pleas were filed by the Congress and one by the CPI (M).

    In many cases, parties have refrained from filing disqualification pleas for “fear of losing the main opposition party status in the assembly”.

    Former Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan told PTI that the anti-defection law “has turned into a joke” under the BJP rule at the Centre and the TMC in the state.

    “Sadly, no action was taken by the speaker in the disqualification cases that we filed over the years. We stopped doing that after a while as it would have harmed our party’s strength in the House. We could have lost the opposition party status,” Mannan said.

    Giving an example, former Left Front Legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty said Left MLA Dipali Biswas, who had switched over to the TMC just after the 2016 assembly polls only to dump the party for the saffron camp last year, continued as a member of the House, despite 26 hearings on her disqualification case.

    “When no action was taken against her, we understood that the speaker wasn’t willing to initiate any. We stopped filing such application. End of the day, it is a matter of political will,” he said.

    The Anti-Defection Law, 1985, states that a member of a House belonging to any political party shall be disqualified if he or she has voluntarily given up the membership of a political party, votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the party he represents, and if a representative of a certain political party joins another outfit after the election.

    As per the Law, the speaker’s decision is final but there, however, is no time limit for him to arrive at any decision.

    A party can move court, but only after the speaker has announced his decision.

    “The speaker not being bound by any timeframe is the loophole that the BJP and the TMC have exploited. There is a need to relook at the law after 36 years,” Mannan said.

    However, the ruling TMC blamed the opposition Congress and the CPI(M) for not having done their homework properly before moving the disqualification pleas.

    It sought to differentiate between the turncoats who joined the ruling party and the ones that switched over to the saffron camp.

    “Their disqualification pleas may not have yielded any result as they had failed to prove their cases. Also, you can’t blame us if an elected member wants to join us to be a part of the developmental process started by the TMC government,” Kunal Ghosh, the state general secretary of the Mamata Banerjee-led party, pointed out.

    “Those who have switched over to the BJP just ahead of the assembly polls in exchange of something and the ones who have joined our camp over the years can’t be clubbed in one bracket. If the BJP is so serious about the law, they should first take action against Sisir Adhikari and Sunil Mondal,” he maintained.

    State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh blamed the TMC for “normalising” defections.

    “Since 2011, the TMC has engineered defections of several MLAs by using both money and muscle power. Was that in accordance with the law? The TMC should answer this,” he said.

    The first instance of defection can be traced back to 1952 when four Forward Bloc MLAs joined the Congress after the earliest assembly elections in the state.

    They resigned from their posts, leading to by-elections.

    However, what drew national attention was former chief minister Prafulla Chandra Ghoshs decision to walk out of Bangla Congress and the CPI(M)-led United Front government along with 17 MLAs, in 1967.

    Ghosh and other legislators subsequently joined the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF), leading to the collapse of the United Front government.

    In the years that followed, however, no major camp change took place till 1998, when a section of Congress leaders led by Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress.

    Between 1998 and 2001, several Congress MLAs who had joined TMC obeyed the grand old party’s whip inside the Assembly to avoid getting disqualified under the anti- defection law but functioned as a TMC leader outside.

    After 2011, however, the state witnessed massive defections as many Congress, and Left legislators made a beeline for the TMC.

    The trend changed following the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP, having registered a stupendous performance in Lok Sabha polls, became an attractive destination for the elected representatives of the TMC.

    A senior TMC leader said the party would henceforth desist from pursuing the ‘Aaya Ram Gaya Ram’ culture, coined after Haryana legislator Gaya Lal changed his party thrice within a fortnight in 1967, and, instead, adopt a “pick and choose” policy.

    Underlining that defection has become a “fashion” in Indian politics, retired Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly, when approached, said that it can only be corrected by strengthening the law.

    “The law needs to be revisited, as the realities of Indian politics have undergone a sea change since 1985.

    There should be a fixed timeframe for the speaker to decide on disqualification pleas,” he told PTI.

    Echoing him, political analyst Suman Bhattacharya wondered whether the BJP, which is at the Centre, would initiate any process to amend this law as it has “highly benefited” from the culture in states where the party did not bag absolute majority.

    Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty is of the view that both the TMC and the BJP are to be equally blamed for making a mockery of the law.

    He further said that that the saffron party is tasting its own medicine in Bengal as many politicians it had inducted ahead of the assembly elections now want to be a part of the winning team.

  • Bengal govt effects police reshuffle before assembly polls

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The West Bengal government on Saturday appointed Soumen Mitra as the new commissioner of Kolkata Police, and transferred incumbent Anuj Sharma as additional director general of the state CID before the state assembly polls.

    Jawed Shamim will be the new additional director general, law and order, of the West Bengal Police, taking over from Gyanwant Singh, the state government said in an order.

    Ajay Kumar Nand will be the new commissioner of Barrackpore Police Commissionerate and Supratim Sarkar will take over as the Bidhanagar Police commissioner, it said.

    Mitra has been holding the post of ADG, Training, of West Bengal Police, while Shamim is special commissioner I of Kolkata Police.

    Elections to the 294-member state assembly are due in April-May this year.

  • Congress’ student wing members stopped from marching to Bengal Assembly

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Activists of Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the Congress, on Wednesday forced their way past two barriers and scuffled with police in the central part of the city during the ‘Vidhan Sabha Abhijan’ called by the opposition party.

    Around 150 members of the Chhatra Parishad broke the two cordons near Subodh Mallick Square before being prevented by the police, at Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road-S N Banerjee Road crossing, from marching to the assembly, police said.

    Some of them were taken into preventive custody, police said.

    The march to the assembly was called to press for demands like the opening of educational institutions which are closed due to the pandemic, appointment of unemployed educated youth in vacant posts, ending the practice of running state-run educational institutions in “autocratic and partisan manner”.

    Congress sources said that Chhatra Parishad state unit president Sourav Prasad fell sick in the melee.