West Bengal assembly accepts privilege motion against Suvendu Adhikari over alleged I-T raid threat

Privilege motion against the West Bengal LoP for allegedly threatening four rebel BJP MLAs with Income Tax raids for disrupting his speech in the House

The West Bengal assembly on Thursday accepted a privilege motion against Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari who allegedly threatened four rebel BJP MLAs with Income Tax raids for disrupting his speech in the House.

A privilege motion has been accepted by the House against Mr. Adhikari and it is being forwarded to the Privilege Committee, Speaker Biman Banerjee announced as proceedings began at 11 a.m.

The Treasury Benches thumped desks, welcoming the announcement, while BJP MLAs protested.

Following this, discussion on the State Budget began, in which both ruling and Opposition MLAs participated.

The four rebel BJP MLAs — Krishna Kalyani (Raiganj), Tanmoy Ghosh (Bishnupur), Soumen Roy (Kaliaganj) and Biswajit Das (Bagda) — had joined the TMC last year without giving up membership of the House. They have not yet been disqualified under the anti-defection law and continue to occupy the Opposition benches.

When Mr. Adhikari was speaking in the House on the Home Department's budget on Wednesday, they repeatedly interrupted him "for lying and spreading canards against the State government".