Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari among 4 BJP MLAs suspended from Bengal assembly budget session

Kolkata: Four of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s members in the West Bengal legislative assembly, including the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, were on Monday suspended from the House for the remainder of the ongoing budget session following a ruckus over the alleged obstruction to organising Saraswati Puja at a college in the state capital.

The BJP MLAs decided to boycott the speech of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the House on Tuesday on the motion of thanks to Governor C V Ananda Bose for his address to the state assembly at the beginning of the session. Adhikari said that he would deliver a speech at the same time outside the state assembly as a mark of protest against the suspension of the BJP MLAs.

The BJP has been trying to put the ruling Trinamool Congress in a tight corner over the past couple of weeks after a student leader of Mamata Banerjee’s party was accused of trying to obstruct the organisation of Saraswati Puja at the Jogesh Chandra Law College in Kolkata earlier this month. The party’s legislator Agnimitra Pal sought to introduce an adjournment motion in the state assembly on Monday. Speaker Biman Banerjee, however, did not allow a discussion on the adjournment motion.

The BJP MLAs then trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans, before staging a walkout.

The speaker later said that the BJP MLAs had thrown house business papers towards his chair.

The TMC chief whip Nirmal Ghosh later moved a motion seeking action against the BJP legislators for unruly behaviour. The motion was adopted and the speaker announced that Pal, Adhikari and two more BJP MLAs – Bishwanath Karak and Bankim Ghosh – would be suspended for 30 days or till the end of this session.

Pal later told journalists outside the state assembly that Saraswati Puja had to be held at some places in West Bengal only after police protection was provided. She cited the example of Jogesh Chandra Law College campus, where the public worship of the goddess of knowledge had to be held under police protection following orders from the Calcutta High Court.