Kolkata, March 13 (IANS) West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay on Thursday revoked his previous direction to the Assembly Secretary barring circulation of house proceedings-related documents to the BJP legislators.
On March 11, the Speaker barred the circulation of the documents to the BJP legislators reportedly to prevent the latter from tearing apart those paper documents within the House when it is in session.
The house will not be in session on Friday on the occasion of the Holi or Dolyatra festival and also on Saturday and Sunday, because of the weekend. As per the fresh directive of the Speaker, the House documents will be circulated again from Monday.
The second round of the Budget session of the Assembly started from March 10 and will continue till March 19.
On Thursday afternoon, while participating in a discussion on the budgetary allocations for some state government departments, the BJP legislator from the Dabgram-Phulbari constituency in Jalpaiguri, Sikha Chatterjee raised the question of how the opposition legislators would participate in the discussion unless they were provided with the documents of the proceedings.
She argued that unless the House documents are circulated, the opposition MLAs would not be aware of the subjects of discussion and hence, they would not be able to participate in the discussions. The Speaker accepted the justification and directed that the House documents will be circulated among the BJP legislators again from Monday.
On Thursday, the House once again witnessed ruckus following protests by the BJP legislators after their proposal for discussion on an allegedly objectionable comment made by the Trinamool Congress legislator from Bharatpur Assembly seat in Murshidabad, Humayun Kabir, directed at the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday was turned down by the speaker.
The BJP legislators, led by the party’s chief whip Shankar Ghosh, staged a walkout and started protesting at the Assembly gate. “Kabir should apologise to the Leader of the Opposition,” Ghosh told media persons.
–IANS
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