On Tuesday, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and the leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari walked out of the Assembly session following an argument with the treasury bench. He was further joined by several other BJP MLAs after the Speaker called the matter of CM losing the Nandigram seat as ‘subjudice’.
“I raised the issue of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee losing in Nandigram. The Speaker said the matter is subjudice. I said then why I should stay here,” explained Adhikari.
Before leaving, Suvendu Adhikari asked the Speaker why should he stay if he cannot raise the matter.
This is the first Assembly Session being conducted after Mamata Banerjee-led TMC won the recently held elections in Bengal and retained power in the state. The session began on June 2 when the opening session of the newly constituted assembly was het-up after the Governor was forced to cut short his inaugural speech amid the commotion by opposition BJP MLAs who protested after finding “no mention” of post-poll violence in the speech.
Reportedly, Dhankhar tabled the speech after reading a few lines from an 18-page address approved by the state Cabinet.
When assembly election results were declared in May, the results announcement had taken a shocking turn late in the evening after Adhikari bagged the majority from Mamata Banerjee’s strong hold. The Nandigram bout underwent the most ferocious campaign as Mamata played her ‘Bengal’s daughter’ card, while Suvendu has accused TMC of only ‘promoting the nephew’.
Mamata, blaming her injury on BJP, vowed to conduct her campaign on a wheelchair with the BJP calling it ‘sympathy politics’. She has also termed Adhikaris as ‘Mir Jafars’ while Suvendu fearmongered that ‘Bengal will become mini-Pakistan’ if she is re-elected.
Nevertheless, after the fiery campaigning, Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee in the latter’s home-turf. Mamata later said that she will challenge the electoral verdict in court, and currently, the case is being heard in the Calcutta High Court.
Meanwhile, when Adhikari spoke on the issue of voting in Nandigram, Law Minister Malay Ghatak went to the Speaker Biman Banerjee and protested. After that, Banerjee told Shuvendu, “The matter is under trial, cannot be taken further as such. You should speak about something else.’’
The opposition MLAs, including Adhikari, walked out after the speaker’s speech. Banerjee, however, condemned the walkout.
