Speaker to administer oath to 4 newly-elected MLAs today

Kolkata: Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee announced on Monday that the swearing-in of four newly-elected MLAs will take place on Tuesday with no delegation of authority for the affirmation ceremony being received from Raj Bhavan till Monday evening. “As per convention and under Article 188 of the Constitution, the four newly-elected members, who won in the recent by-elections will be sworn in by me,” the Speaker said at the Assembly.

The four MLAs are – Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj, Mukut Mani Adhikari from Ranaghat South, Madhuparna Thakur from Bagda and Supti Pande from Maniktala.

Meanwhile, just after the Speaker’s announcement of swearing in of the four MLAs, Governor C V Ananda Bose wrote to Sayantika Banerjee and Reyat Hossain Sarkar who won by elections from Baranagar and Bhagwangola Assembly constituencies, respectively, and were administered oath by the Speaker recently. Bose, who had directed the Deputy Speaker to instead administer the oath, stated that their oath before the Speaker was unconstitutional and would incur a penalty of Rs 500 per day for sitting or voting, to be recovered as a debt owed to the state.

“The Speaker has said that he will look into the matter,” said Reyat. State Parliamentary Affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said: “We have done everything under the ambit of the constitution.

There is nothing unconstitutional in it. The governor is like a ‘caged parrot’ functioning under the instructions of the centre.” It is learnt that a letter from the Assembly already informed the Governor that the Deputy Speaker was asked to do the needful in case Banerjee and Hossain Sarkar but he refused as the Speaker was very much present. In this backdrop, abiding by the rule book it was the Speaker who

did the needful.