On Saturday, four TMC MLAs were elected in the recently concluded bypoll at Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagdah and Maniktala. “TMC has planned that in the same way (as MLAs Sayantika Banerjee and Reyat Hussain Sarkar who took oath on July 5), they will arrange the oaths of four newly elected MLAs,” Speaker Biman Banerjee said on Monday. “As per tradition, we will inform the Governor that four new MLAs have been elected. After that, he will decide who will administer their oath and where. If he does not answer, we will arrange their oath ceremony in our next assembly session,” he added.
On July 5, over a month after they were elected, two other MLAs of the Trinamool Congress, Sayantika Banerjee and Reyat Hussain Sarkar had been administered the oath of office by Speaker Biman Banerjee after a month-long impasse between the party and Raj Bhawan over where the ceremony would be held.
The oath had finally taken place in a one day special session of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly led by Speaker Biman Banerjee. Following this, Governor C V Ananda Bose had accused the Speaker of constitutional impropriety. “A report is being sent to the Hon’ble President about the constitutional impropriety of the Speaker in administering the oath of affirmation to the newly elected MLAs,” a statement from the Raj Bhavan had said.
The face-off between the TMC government and Governor Bose over the swearing-in ceremony began in the second week of June after the Governor asked the two MLAs to come to the Raj Bhavan for the oath-taking ceremony and they refused.
The Governor, who normally assigns either the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker to administer oaths to legislators, sent a letter inviting the two MLAs to take oath at the Raj Bhavan on June 26. However, the letter reportedly did not mention who would administer the oath. After that, the two had refused to take oath at Raj Bhawan and they started a dharna at the legislative assembly premises, demanding their oath should be administered by the Speaker.
Earlier, Speaker Biman Banerjee announced that a special Assembly session would begin on Friday (July 5), indicating that the MLAs would be sworn in then. The same evening, the Governor nominated Deputy Speaker Asish Banerjee to administer the oath of affirmation.