Pandemonium in WB assembly, governor completes speech in four mins

West Bengal Assembly on Friday witnessed a total pandemonium as Opposition BJP led a massive protest on the floor of the assembly as governor Jagdeep Dhankar started reading out the speech. As a result, he completed reading out the written speech in just four minutes restricting to only the introduction and the conclusion of the written speech, writes Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri, ETV Bharat's Kolkata Bureau Chief.

Kolkata: The apprehension was there on whether the ongoing tussle between the West Bengal government and the state governor, Jagdeep Dhankar would reach an unprecedented level on the inaugural day of the budget session on Friday. It was speculated that the governor might skip from reading out certain portions of the written speech provided by the state government.

However, in reality, something different happened than what was anticipated. The governor completed reading out the written speech in just four minutes restricting to only the introduction and the conclusion of the written speech. But that did not further aggravate the ongoing state government-governor tension, as the reason for the development was a massive protest by BJP legislators on the floor of the assembly as Dhankar started reading out the speech.

The Opposition legislators came down to the well of the House as soon as the governor started reading out the speech and started sloganeering in top pitch. They were protesting over various issues like post-poll violence and the recent Kasba fresh vaccination scam, among others. The governor tried continuing with his attempt to read out the speech but he was hardly audible amid chaos. So ultimately he refrained from the attempt and completed the entire process of reading out in just four minutes. The members of the treasury bench were seen observing the entire fiasco silently.

The day in the assembly started with a cordial note. When Dhankar’s convoy reached the assembly premises, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and speaker Biman Bandopadhyay greeted him. Even while he went out of the House after finishing his short speech, the Chief Minister and the speaker accompanied him.

Political observers feel that, although unfortunate, the development played a crucial role in aggravating the possible tussle between the state government and the governor.

“Had the governor deviated from the written speech or skipped certain portions of the speech, the ruling party MLAs might have objected to that. As a result, the tension between the state government and the governor would have been aggravated. But since in reality, the governor had to cut short his speech because of the protests by the Opposition BJP legislators, no scope for tension between the ruling party and the governor at least on this count remains,” a city-based political observer said.

Later, the Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari told newspersons that the written speech had no mention about the continuing post-poll violence in the state. “On the contrary, the speech mentioned the protest over the post-poll violence, which they wanted the governor to read out. So we protested against this on the floor of the assembly,” Adhikari said. He also alleged that although BJP had sought time to discuss the fake vaccination racket, no time has been allotted for that.

Meanwhile, Mukul Ray, who is though officially a BJP legislator still, but has joined Trinamool Congress was allotted Seat number 42 in the assembly. This seat is in the first row of a section on the left side of the speaker seat, which is officially for the Opposition. Ray came to assembly on Friday and occupied the seat allotted to him. Criticizing this action, the state BJP president described Ray as a “shameful” person.