“The Governor has authorised Deputy Speaker Asish Banerjee to conduct the swearing-in ceremony at the Assembly tomorrow (Friday),” PTI quoted an official of Raj Bhavan, as saying.

The climbdown from the Raj Bhavan came hours after Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Biman Banerjee, summoned a special session on Friday, saying the functioning of the House was not solely dependent on the Governor.

“The Special Session will begin at 2 pm tomorrow (Friday). If someone thinks that we are helpless, then he or she is wrong. The Assembly is not helpless and everything is not in the hands of the Governor. There are rules, regulations, and constitutional norms. All of us have to abide by them,” the Speaker said.

Sources said that a decision on the pending swearing-in TMC MLAs —  Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Rayat Hossain Sarkar — could be taken in Friday’s special session.

Earlier, the Speaker had written to President of India Droupadi Murmu and sought her intervention to break the deadlock. The Speaker, in his letter to Murmu, had accused Governor CV Ananda Bose of deliberately creating an impasse.

Meanwhile, Baranagar MLA Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Bhagabangola MLA Rayat Hossain Sarkar continued with their dharna on the Assembly premises for the sixth day. They are demanding that they be administered the oath of office in the Assembly instead of Raj Bhavan.

The Governor had earlier invited the two MLAs, who won the Assembly bypolls held alongside the Lok Sabha elections, to take the oath at Raj Bhavan. The MLAs refused to go and requested the Governor to come to the Assembly to administer the oath or authorise Speaker Biman Banerjee to do so.  They argued that convention dictates the Governor should assign either the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly to administer the oath in case of bypoll winners.

Sayantika had earlier said that she was “scared” to go to Raj Bhavan to take oath in the backdrop of molestation allegations against Governor Bose by a woman Raj Bhavan staff member.