Single-day monsoon session of Assembly adjourned after obituary reference

Kolkata: The single-day monsoon session of the West Bengal Assembly was adjourned after an hour of obituary references and laying of some reports on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was also present in the House for around 15 minutes.

This was the first time when the session held since the Covid situation prevailed in March and it held following all Covid protocols.

Legislators and all concerned persons underwent rapid antigen tests before entering the Assembly.

Tests have been conducted on 644 people on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Covid test began from 9 am onward and two persons including Jalangi's MLA Abdur Rejjak tested positive among the 197 people who underwent the tests on Wednesday. As a result he could not attend the session. Sources said that he straight went to MLA Hostel. Later he was requested to go to a state run safe home.

On Tuesday four persons tested positive when 447 tests were conducted. One of the four persons is the driver of Left Front Legislative Party leader and CPIM MLA Sujan Chakraborty's car. As a result, Chakraborty did not turn up to attend the Assembly on Wednesday as he was in home quarantine as a precautionary measure.

Around 150 MLAs were present in the Assembly on Wednesday. Senior Trinamool Congress ministers including Subrata Mukherjee and Sovandeb Chattopadhyay were also present.

Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay moved the Condolence Resolution to pay homage to former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Obituary references of 19 eminent people including some MLAs and Covid warriors those lost their lives in the line of duty were

read out.

The legislators observed one-minute silence to show respect to the departed souls.

The state Labour minister Moloy Ghatak laid audit reports of four departments.