Kolkata, March 11 -- Speaker of Bengal legislative Assembly Biman Banerjee on Tuesday directed his secretariat to withhold circulation of Assembly-related paper documents to the BJP legislators during the session.
Banerjee's directive came after MLAs of the saffron party tore official documents in the Assembly, following the Speaker's turning down their proposal to adjourn the House over alleged attacks on temples in different parts of the state.
Justifying his decision, Bandopadhyay stated that the issue had already been deliberated upon in the House and did not warrant further discussion.
The BJP legislators started shouting slogans soon after the rejection and started tearing the official documents given to them which were part of the Assembly Session. The Speaker urged them on more than one occasion not to disrupt Assembly proceedings in such a manner and asked them to take their respective seats. However, they ignored his directive and staged a walkout while continuing to tear such documents. The Speaker retorted by directing his secretariat not to provide any official documents or papers during the session to the BJP MLAs. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said: "There is no democracy even inside the legislative Assembly. The Opposition is not being heard. The walkout by BJP MLAs is in protest against this." He added that BJP legislators will hold a bigger protest in front of the Assembly on Wednesday.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.