A video grab of the clash inside the Bengal Assembly on Monday. (PTI) THE BIRBHUM killings of last week triggered tumultuous scenes in the West Bengal Assembly on Monday with MLAs from the Opposition BJP and ruling TMC trading blows, leading to the suspension of five BJP legislators, including Leader of Opposition Suvendhu Adhikari and BJP chief whip Manoj Tigga.
Several MLAs from both sides were injured in the incident, including TMC’s Asit Mazumder who was admitted to hospital with a broken nose. The incident came on a day when the toll from the Birbhum incident rose to nine with another victim, identified as Najma Bibi, succumbing to burn injuries in hospital.
“This is an unwanted, unprecedented incident,” said Speaker Biman Banerjee, referring to the chaos on the last day of the Budget session after several BJP MLAs trooped to the well of the House demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the killings in Birbhum’s Bogtui village.
The five BJP MLAs, also including Sankar Ghosh, Narahari Mahato and Dipak Barman, have been suspended till the next session. Official sources said the Speaker would take a decision before the next session on whether the suspension would continue.
“We were illegally suspended,” Adhikari said. The BJP’s West Bengal unit tweeted: “Democracy is disgraced!” However, the state’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee claimed that the incident was “planned” by the BJP “to tarnish the image of Bengal”.
The incident came three days after the Calcutta High Court directed the state government to hand over the Birbhum case to the CBI to ensure a “fair probe”. Last Monday night, eight people, including women and children were found charred to death in Bogtui, allegedly in retaliation for the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.
The action taken by the Speaker on Monday marked the second set of suspensions for the BJP in this session. Two other party MLAs, Sudip Mukherjee and Mihir Goswami, were suspended for the entire session on March 7 for disrupting Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s address.
Incidentally, in January this year, the Supreme Court had set aside the one-year suspension of 12 Opposition BJP MLAs from the Maharashtra Assembly. The court said that suspension beyond the ongoing session was violative of basic democratic values as it would mean the constituency that elected the member would remain unrepresented in the House.
On Monday, minutes after the West Bengal Assembly started at 11 am, BJP MLAs started protesting loudly over the Birbhum incident and demanded the resignation of Banerjee, who also holds the Home portfolio. The MLAs then reached the well and started shouting slogans against the Chief Minister, ignoring requests from the Speaker to return to their seats.
After around half an hour, several TMC MLAs, too, reached the well and soon got involved in an altercation with the Opposition members.
Later, BJP’s Adhikari alleged that his party’s MLAs were beaten inside the House and that several of its leaders, including Tigga and Mahato, were injured. Even women MLAs, including Chandana Bauri, were attacked, he claimed. MLA Bauri claimed that “TMC MLAs started kicking and beating us, and I got injured in the back and on my neck and hand”.
Posting a purported clip of the incident, which showed MLAs jostling each other, the BJP state unit tweeted that “destructive totalitarianism is going on in the Assembly”.
“TMC MLAs dragged BJP MLA Narahari Mahato to the ground by the hair. Such a painful assassination of democracy is taking place inside the West Bengal Legislative Assembly today – courtesy TMC!” the party, with a current strength of 70 in the 294-member House, posted.
The BJP said that its MLAs Tigga, Bauri, Mahato, Sikha Chatterjee, Ajay Poddar and Lakshan Bauri were admitted to hospital. Adhikari later went to Raj Bhavan with the other suspended MLAs and complained to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar about the Assembly incident. He also went to see the injured BJP MLAs in hospital.
“Everyone in the state has seen what happened inside the Assembly, how Shaukat Molla beat our MLA Narahari Mahato, how Rahim Baxi bullied us inside the Assembly. Mamata Banerjee brought these hooligans in the Assembly. She will have to answer for this,” he said, referring to two TMC MLAs.
TMC Minister Partha Chatterjee said that his party’s “MLA Asit Majumder was seriously injured and has been shifted to hospital” and that “our women MLAs like Ashima Patra and Chandrima Bhattacharya were injured”. The TMC also alleged that BJP MLAs attacked women security personnel in the Assembly and damaged official documents.
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