Suspension of seven BJP MLAs from Assembly revoked

kolkata: Speaker of West Bengal legislative Assembly Biman Banerjee on Thursday revoked the suspension of seven BJP MLAs, including the Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who were suspended during the Budget session of the Assembly in March.

The Speaker considered two separate motions moved by two saffron camp legislators in the House. The first motion was moved by BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul requesting withdrawal of the suspension order against Adhikari and four other MLAs -- Manoj Tigga, Narhari Mahato, Mihir Goswami and Shankar Ghosh. The five were suspended for alleged assault on Trinamool Congress MLAs on the floor of the house during the Budget session. Sikha Chatterjee, read out the second motion in the House, seeking a similar suspension revoke against MLAs Mihir Goswami and Sudip Mukhopadhyay who were suspended for creating disturbances in the House during Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's inaugural speech on March 9.

State Parliamentary Affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said that the House belongs to the Opposition but it should be the responsibility of all legislators to act as per rules of the House.

"They (the BJP) had no need to move to the Calcutta High Court on this issue," Chatterjee said.

Speaker Biman Banerjee had pointed out some technical flaws in the motion moved by the BJP and asked them to submit a fresh draft on Monday itself. But the BJP did the same only on Thursday.