Bengal Assembly Speaker defends decision to suspend 5 BJP legislators on Sep 4

Kolkata, Sep 5 West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay on Friday defended and explained his action to suspend a total of five BJP legislators one after another within a span of just less than two hours on the last and the third day of the special session of the West Bengal assembly on September 4.

On Thursday, the BJP legislators started protesting and raising slogans coming down to the Well of the House while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was delivering her address on the motion on the issue of harassment of Bengali-speaking people in the BJP-ruled states.

At that point of time, the Speaker suspended five BJP legislators one after another within less than two hours.

The BJP legislators were protesting against the decision to suspend the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, for the session earlier on Tuesday, which was the second day of the special session of the house.

Two of the suspended BJP legislators, namely the Chief Whip of the BJP’s legislative party in the West Bengal assembly, Shankar Ghosh, and his party legislator Bankim Ghosh, were hospitalised after they fell sick being roughed up by the Assembly marshals.

Interacting with the mediapersons on Friday, he said that he took decisions on the suspension of five BJP legislators and calling in of the marshals to control the chaos within the house on Thursday as per provisions of law.

“Many might describe me as biased personally. But my chair is not. No individual is beyond criticism,” the Speaker said.

He, however, said that the events of intervention by the marshals and the hospitalization of the Chief Whip were unfortunate. He also said that the marshal was hospitalised.

“Had the BJP legislators acted as per the law of the assembly, I would not have to opt for tough actions. If anyone uses force within the assembly, the necessity arises to stop him or her from doing so. The BJP legislators should have acted in a much more restrained manner on Thursday. There had never been a fight within the assembly. I have acted only as per the law,” the Speaker said on Friday.

On Thursday, BJP’s national president, J.P. Nadda, called up Adhikari to enquire about the health conditions of the two hospitalised party legislators.

J.P. Nadda had also sought photographs and videos of their scuffle with assembly marshals as supporting documents.

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