New Delhi: Ruling Trinamool Congress and Opposition BJP legislatures threw a few punches at each other on Monday after the Bengal government “refused to discuss the state’s law and order situation” in the assembly.
The Opposition wanted to discuss the mass deaths in Rampurhat where eight people – among them women and children – were burnt alive last week, allegedly to avenge the death of a local Trinamool leader Bhadu Sheikh. The deceased were relatives of those suspected to have killed Sheikh in a bomb attack.
Trinamool MLA Asit Majumdar got a bloody nose in the House and had to be taken to hospital. He accused BJP Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of hitting him.
Mr Adhikari said the Opposition had demanded a discussion over the state’s law and order situation. “The government declined. MLAs are not safe even inside the assembly. At least eight to ten of our legislators were beaten up, including Chief Whip Manoj Tigga, by TMC MLAs,” he told the media.
Several BJP leaders, including IT Cell chief Amit Malviya, tweeted a video of the chaotic scenes. Malviya captioned the tweet: “Absolute pandemonium in the West Bengal assembly. After Bengal Governor, TMC MLAs now assault BJP MLAs, including Chief whip Manoj Tigga, as they were demanding a discussion on the Rampurhat massacre on the floor of the house. What is Mamata Banerjee trying to hide?”
Suvendu Adhikari and four other BJP MLAs were suspended from the Assembly for the whole of this year. The others were Dipak Burman, Shankar Ghosh, Manoj Tigga and Narahari Mahato.
TMC leader and minister Firhad Hakim squarely blamed the BJP “for staging a drama to create chaos in the assembly”. He also said several Trinamool Congress legislators were injured.
Also read: Bengal Assembly speaker suspends 5 BJP MLAs for unruly conduct