Kolkata, Sep 4 (IANS) In an unprecedented development, a total of five Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators were suspended from the House within less than two hours on the last day of the special session of the West Bengal Assembly on Thursday.
The suspended BJP legislators include the party’s Chief Whip in the house, Shankar Ghosh, fashion designer-turned-politician, Agnimitra Paul, veteran party MLA, Mihir Goswami, cricketer-turned-politician Ashok Dinda, and Bankim Ghosh.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, was also suspended.
On Thursday, as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee started delivering her speech on the motion on the issue of harassment of Bengali-speaking people in BJP-ruled states, the party legislators led by their Chief Whip, Shankar Ghosh, started protesting against the “undemocratic” suspension of Suvendu Adhikari.
First, they protested from their respective seats, and finally, they came down to the Well of the Assembly and began protesting there.
Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay asked the protesting BJP legislators to refrain from the protests at the Well, which was ignored by the BJP legislators.
Shankar Ghosh was the first BJP legislator whose suspension was announced by the speaker on Thursday afternoon.
The marshal of was also called to escort Ghosh out of the House. That irked the BJP workers further, and they started a more intense protest demonstration and sloganeering.
Finally, Agnimitra Paul, Mihir Goswami, Ashok Dinda, and Bankim Ghosh were also suspended one after another from the house by the speaker.
Like Ghosh. Goswami was also taken out by the marshal of the house. The suspension of the five legislators took place within a period of less than two hours.
“During the last five years, undemocratic suspension of the opposition legislators, including the leader of the opposition, has become a trend in every session of the house. The Speaker had been acting in a partisan manner all throughout,” Ghosh said at the lobby of the Assembly.
–IANS
src/pgh