Bengal BJP MLAs stage sit-in on Assembly premises against Mamata Banerjee govt

Kolkata: BJP legislators led by Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday staged a sit-in on the premises of the West Bengal Assembly in protest against alleged appeasement politics by the Mamata Banerjee government.

Shouting slogans like Murti bhangar sarkar aar nei darkar (We don’t want a government that cannot stop vandalism of Puja pandals), around 30 BJP legislators squatted on the stairs leading to the main entrance of the Assembly hall.

This comes a day after four BJP legislators — Adhikari, Agnimitra Paul, Bankim Ghosh, and Biswanath Karak — were suspended on Monday for alleged unruly behaviour.

Speaking to reporters, Adhikari said, "We are not fighting against any community. We are against this government, which has failed to prevent vandalisation of Durga, Lakshmi, and Kartik idols in parts of Bengal in recent times." "We oppose the attempt to stop Saraswati Puja in educational institutions. The state government has taken no action against the perpetrators," he added.

Adhikari said BJP MLAs would hold a parallel session outside the Assembly to highlight issues faced by the people of the state under the TMC government, including alleged efforts to suppress the festivals of the majority community.

On the privilege motion moved against him by the TMC and its acceptance by the Speaker, Adhikari remarked, "I have been suspended three or four times by this House, and privilege motions have been moved against me before. This is because I have consistently raised my voice against the ruling party’s appeasement policies, corruption, and attempts to stifle democracy. But they cannot silence me."

Agnimitra Paul claimed that the suspension of the four MLAs was a pre-planned strategy to prevent them from highlighting issues such as rising attacks on Hindu places of worship and efforts to halt age-old traditions like Saraswati Puja.

"We don’t want West Bengal to turn into another Bangladesh. We won’t allow Mamata Banerjee to continue her blatant appeasement policies. We demand the arrest of those responsible for the attacks on Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja, and Kartik Puja pandals in various parts of Bengal a few months ago," Paul added.

"Why has no action been taken against the ruling party's student union leader who issued a diktat against holding Saraswati Puja at Jogesh Chandra College, necessitating High Court intervention? Mamata Banerjee does not want these issues to be discussed in public domain. That’s why she had the Speaker issue suspension orders against us," Paul added.

Paul said she wanted to highlight issues such as "the rise in cases of rape and murder of women, as seen in incidents like the murder of a medical student at RG Kar hospital, the rape and murder of a minor in Joynagar, and the sexual assault and murder of a teenage girl in New Town, among others."

She claimed that the suspension order was used to prevent her from addressing these matters in the House during her response to the Governor’s Budget speech.