Bengal Assembly accepts privilege motion against Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari

Four MLAs allege that they were threatened with tax raids

The West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Thursday accepted a Privilege Motion against Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on charges that he threatened four MLAs in the Assembly. Speaker Biman Banerjee said that privilege motion has been accepted and forwarded to the privilege committee of the House. Mr. Banerjee told journalists that the developments on Wednesday when the alleged incident occurred have been recorded in the Assembly and prima facie there is a case.

On Wednesday, four MLAs who have switched sides from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the Trinamool Congress alleged that Mr. Adhikari had threatened them with tax raids.  Describing the development as “unfortunate”, the Speaker said he is not aware of such an incident in the State Assembly where during the session an MLA has threatened another. The Speaker said that he has directed privilege committee to complete proceedings in the ongoing session of State Assembly.  Mr. Banerjee also added that the MLAs fear for life and have sought protection from him.  Later in the day the seating arrangement of these MLAs who were sitting in the Opposition benches was changed.

Among the MLAs who made the allegations were Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj constituency, Tanmoy Ghosh from Bishnupur seat, Soumen Roy from Kaliaganj seat and Biswajit Das from Bagda constituency, all of them who had won on a BJP ticket in May 2021 but have later defected to the Trinamool.. On Wednesday, the MLAs raised protests when Mr. Adhikari was speaking on the subject of the Budget. 

Reacting to developments, BJP MLA Manoj Tigga said that the allegations were baseless and asked which party the MLAs are affiliated to. “Instead of the privilege motion against Suvendu Adhikari, the Speaker must decide about the affiliation of these MLAs,” Mr. Tigga said. He added that since the MLAs were protesting against the Leader of Opposition they have proved that they have joined the Trinamool.  Earlier a petition by the BJP legislators seeking to disqualify Mukul Roy who also had switched sides and joined the Trinamool was dismissed by the Speaker on grounds that the petitioners have not been able to put enough evidence before him.