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West Bengal Speaker calls special Assembly session tomorrow amid oath-taking row

indianexpress.com 2 days ago

The statement from the Speaker came amid the ongoing impasse over the swearing-in of two newly elected TMC MLAs. Sources said that a decision on the pending swearing-in of the MLAs -- Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Rayat Hossain Sarkar -- could be taken in Friday’s special session.

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Earlier, the Speaker had written to President of India Droupadi Murmu and sought her intervention to break the deadlock. Express archive

West Bengal Legislative Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Thursday summoned a special session of the Assembly on Friday and said that the functioning of the House is not solely dependent on the Governor.

The statement from the Speaker came amid the ongoing impasse over the swearing-in of two newly elected TMC MLAs.

Speaking to mediapersons, Biman Banerjee said the Business Advisory Committee meeting has been scheduled for noon on Friday and the tenure of the session will be decided in the meeting.

“The Special Session will begin at 2 pm tomorrow. If someone thinks that we are helpless, then he or she is wrong. The Assembly is not helpless and everything is not in the hands of the Governor. There are rules, regulations, and constitutional norms. All of us have to abide by them,” said the Speaker.

Sources said that a decision on the pending swearing-in of the two newly elected TMC MLAs — Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Rayat Hossain Sarkar — could be taken in Friday’s special session.

Earlier, the Speaker had written to President of India Droupadi Murmu and sought her intervention to break the deadlock. The Speaker, in his letter to Murmu, had accused Governor CV Ananda Bose of deliberately creating an impasse.

Meanwhile, Baranagar MLA Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Bhagabangola MLA Rayat Hossain Sarkar continued with their dharna on the Assembly premises for the sixth day. They are demanding that they be administered the oath of office in the Assembly instead of Raj Bhavan.

The Governor had earlier invited the two MLAs, who won the Assembly bypolls held alongside the Lok Sabha elections, to take the oath at Raj Bhavan. The MLAs refused to go and requested the Governor to come to the Assembly to administer the oath or authorise Speaker Biman Banerjee to do so.

Sayantika had earlier said that she was “scared” to go to Raj Bhavan to take oath in the backdrop of molestation allegations against Governor Bose by a woman Raj Bhavan staff member.

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