Speaker admits privilege motion against Suvendu Adhikari for threatening 4 MLAs

kolkata: Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Thursday admitted a privilege motion against leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari for allegedly threatening four rebel BJP MLAs with Income Tax raids and issuing death threats to them.

Banerjee has forwarded the privilege motion accepted by the House against Adhikari and have forwarded it to the Privilege Committee. The Committee has been asked to submit its report within this ongoing Assembly session that will continue till March 28.

The four MLAs Krishna Kalyani (Raigunj), Biswajit Das (Bagda), Tanmay Ghosh (Barjora) and Soumen Roy (Kaliagunj) sent a joint letter to the speaker citing the two charges against Suvendu Adhikari.

"I checked the records on Thursday morning and prima facie found the allegations to be true. It is unprecedented and unfortunate that a Leader of Opposition would use such words in the House. I have never come across such behaviour during my long tenure in the state legislature. This is a criminal offence," Banerjee said.

The four MLAs had joined the Trinamool Congress in October 2021 and had not been given membership of the House. They have not yet been disqualified under the anti-defection law and continue to occupy the opposition benches.

While Adhikari was speaking in the House on the Home Department's Budget on Wednesday, they had allegedly interrupted him "for lying and spreading canards against the state government".

A visibly infuriated Adhikari while walking out of the house allegedly threatened them. According to sources in the state government, the four MLAs have been accorded additional security by the police.

The four on Wednesday evening have asked the Speaker to bolster their security further.