Kolkata: West Bengal assembly on Tuesday, witnessed heated moments in phases during the first-ever face-to-face Legislative Assembly tussle between the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee and the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari. The tussle started after Adhikari, on the floor of the house, referred to the Chief Minister's defeat at the Nandigram assembly constituency in the last elections. The BJP leader said, "The people of Nandigram elected me defeating the Chief Minister".
But that comment created ruckus in the assembly as the Trinamool Congress MLAs started protesting against the comment. The Legislative Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay also advised Adhikari not to refer to that incident since the matter is in court now. The speaker also said that this comment will not be included in the proceedings of the house. Irritated by that Adhikari staged a walkout.
Later the ruling party passed a proposal condemning the action of the Leader of the Opposition in the house. State Legislative Affairs Minister, Partha Chattopadhyay said that from Adhikari's action it was evident that he lacks knowledge about Legislative behaviour.
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Later addressing the media, Suvendu Adhikari said that Trinamool Congress is resorting to 'language terrorism' within the house. "The speaker deliberately stopped me from presenting my argument. I was not allowed to speak. Within the house, Trinamool Congress is trying to dominate the opposition legislators through language of terror," Adhikari said.
He was referring to a comment by Trinamool MLA from Naihati, Partha Bhowmik, who, while addressing the house referred the BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari as 'Mir Jafar' without directly naming him. "Bengal is fortunate that our Chief Minister could recognize the Mir Jafar in time", said Naihati MLA Partha Bhowmik.
During her turn, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also launched a scathing attack against Adhikari and BJP. "Some street smarts who have no decency of language and beauty of oration are moving around. Those who did not allow the governor to read out his speech are now making tall claims. If the opposition gives constructive suggestions we will surely accept it," she said.
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She said that all attempts were made this time to forcefully take control of Bengal. "RSS placed their own people everywhere and flooded areas with money. All officers were replaced by BJP's own people. I myself got defeated. The people were not allowed to vote. Had there been free and fair polls, BJP would not have secured even 30 seats," she said.
On the issue of COVID- 19 vaccines, the state government has already vaccinated around two crore people. "I have never seen such a shameless Prime Minister, who uses his picture everywhere. The Union government is depriving West Bengal of the supply of vaccines that they are providing to Gujarat and Rajasthan. The common people are suffering as a result," the Chief Minister said.
She also slammed the comment by certain elected representatives of BJP being vocal of separate statehood for North Bengal. "We will not allow further division of Bengal at any cost," she said.
