Day-long orientation urges MPs, MLAs to be ‘sensitive’

Parliamentarians and legislators on Monday urged the new MLAs to come to the Assembly regularly and go through the documents, not only to enrich themselves but to serve the people of the area they represent.

The new MLAs on Monday took part in a day-long orientation course, which was inaugurated by the Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay in Nausad Ali Hall. Sobhan Deb Chattopadhyay, state Power Minister spoke on the importance of various committees and their role. Chattopadhyay was a chief whip in the Legislative Assembly for many years.

The committees give recommendations on the functioning of various state government departments, which help in plugging the problems that often surface while running them. Saugata Roy talked about the Assembly proceedings and discussed how it should be maintained by the legislators.

Sudip Bandopadhy, Partha Chatterjee (who was the leader of opposition from 2006-11) and Abdul Mannan, leader  of Opposition, also talked in the meeting. B Mahanti, Secretary, West Bengal Legislative Assembly, spoke on how the legislators could ventilate important issues of their areas by raising questions in the house.

Chattopadhyay said such orientation course always helped the new comers to understand the Assembly’s proceedings and also how to behave on the floor of the house. As the House belongs to the opposition, the opposition MLAs are supposed to make constructive criticisms and not disrupt the house to create bad precedents. 

Trinamool Congress swept the 2016 Assembly election in the state in May, by winning an unprecedented 211 seats out of 294.