West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Tuesday directed officials to not give documents to BJP MLAs after opposition legislators allegedly tossed torn papers at the Speaker for the second consecutive day.
On Monday, the Speaker had suspended a BJP MLA for the entire session and asked marshals to escort two other BJP MLAs out of the House following instances of alleged paper throwing at the Speaker.
The Speaker’s directive came after BJP MLAs tore official documents in the Assembly as Banerjee turned down their proposal to bring an adjournment motion over alleged attacks on temples in different parts of the state.
As the House convened on Tuesday, the Opposition BJP proposed to bring an adjournment motion over alleged attacks on temples in Murshidabad and Basirhat. But Speaker Banerjee rejected the Opposition party’s proposal. The Speaker also rejected BJP legislators’ proposal of introducing a Bill related to children.
As BJP MLAs walked out from the Assembly raising slogans against the TMC government in the state, papers were allegedly hurled at the Speaker’s desk. Soon after this, Speaker Banerjee told the secretary of the House to not give papers to the BJP MLAs. “Do not give them (BJP MLAs) papers (related to Assembly proceedings),” the Speaker told the secretary of the House.
The Speaker said BJP MLAs had earlier, too, torn documents of House proceedings in the Assembly, while staging protests.
Outside the Assembly, BJP MLAs were joined by Leader of Opposition in Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, who too was suspended for the entire session last month.
Accusing the Speaker of being partial towards the ruling TMC and never honouring the Constitution, Adhikari dubbed Banerjee’s no paper decision as the “rarest incident in the Indian Constitution”.
“There is no democracy even inside the legislative Assembly. The opposition is not being heard. The Trinamool Congress government is trying to do everything by force. The walkout by BJP MLAs is in protest against this,” Adhikari said. He has been suspended from the Assembly till March 18 for allegedly insulting the Speaker.
“Our party will protest at his Assembly constituency Baruipur Paschim and campaign against him (Speaker),” added Adhikari, referring to the party’s decision to protest outsider Banerjee’s Baruipur home.
Reacting to BJP’s move, the Speaker had said on Monday, “They are welcome to hold protests against me in my constituency, but I wonder where they will get the people from.” “I guess they will bring people from Nandigram,” the Speaker added, referring to Adhikari’s constituency.