Bengal Assembly Speaker suspends 4 BJP MLAs from House amid protests

Kolkata: The West Bengal Assembly witnessed chaotic scenes on Monday leading to the suspension of four BJP MLAs, including chief whip Shankar Ghosh, from the House.

Around 40 BJP MLAs, led by Ghosh, were protesting the expunging of party legislators' comments, including those of noted economist-turned-party MLA Ashok Lahiri, on Thursday.

As the House assembled during the day, the BJP MLAs repeatedly interrupted minister Chandrima Bhattacharya's speech, prompting Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay to first ask the legislators to take their seats, and when they did not budge, order the suspension of four legislators from the House for the ongoing session, which will end on Tuesday.

Ghosh and three other BJP MLAs -- Agnimitra Paul, Dipak Barman and Manoj Oraon -- were suspended from the House for misconduct and disobeying the Speaker's orders and tearing business papers and hitting microphones on their tables.

Before leaving, there were angry exchanges between Paul and TMC MLA Asima Patra but other TMC legislators prevented an escalation.

Shankar Ghosh and the three other BJP MLAs were led away from the House by assembly security staffers.

Other BJP MLAs continued to stage protests for another 20 minutes before staging a walkout.

As the Speaker continued with the proceedings, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari approached his chair and sought to register a protest against the action taken against the MLAs.

"Please leave the House. This is not the way," Bandopadhyay said.

To the demands made by TMC chief whip Nirmal Ghosh and minister Firhad Hakim about actions for damaging microphones, he said, "I will look into the issue. Action will be taken against those who did such an act." Later interacting with reporters on the assembly premises, Adhikari alleged that several BJP MLAs were physically assaulted by "TMC men masquerading as security personnel brought from Baruipur, a TMC stronghold in South 24 Parganas".

Ghosh's spectacles were broken while the personal belongings of the other MLAs were damaged in the assault.

"As I tried to submit these broken articles on the Speaker's table, he rudely asked me and other BJP MLAs accompanying me to leave the floor immediately. On the one hand, he is not taking action against our assaulters and on the other, he is throttling the voice of the opposition. We will bring a no confidence motion against the speaker in the winter session of the assembly," he said.

The Speaker later told reporters that 14 security staffers of the assembly were injured as they were trying to remove the suspended MLAs from the House.

"This is unfortunate. Such things should not occur in a parliamentary democracy. I have asked the assembly secretariat to examine the report of injury to several staffers and also the report of damage to the spectacles and watch of BJP members as well as the damage to microphones. If the allegations of damage are proved, we will recover the money from the salary of the legislators," he added.