Speaker to raise 'external interference' issue in Assembly at all-India meet

KOLKATA: Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Tuesday said he would raise the issue of "external interference" in the decisions of the Assembly in the all India Speakers conference.

He hoped that the discussions would be fruitful and a decision would be made to tackle the problems.

"The All India Speaker's Conference will be held in Assam next week. I will be attending it. A few days back, I had met the Speakers of Odisha and Delhi assemblies. We will discuss how we are facing external interferences in the functioning of the Assembly," he said.

Last year, Banerjee had complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla about "excessive interference" by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar in matters related to parliamentary democracy and the functioning of the House.

Dhankhar has raised questions about a number of decisions of the Assembly, which has not gone down well with the Speaker.

Banerjee also said that it is unprecedented that the decisions taken in the assembly are being challenged in court. "We will discuss this aspect too," Banerjee told reporters.

Mukul Roy, a former BJP national vice-president, had defected to the ruling TMC in June 2021 after winning the assembly polls. Roy later became the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

A BJP MLA has moved the Calcutta High Court challenging Roy's election as the PAC chairman and prayed for the nomination of an opposition member to the post as per tradition.

The TMC government and Dhankhar had shared an acrimonious relationship since he assumed office in July 2019.