Over 100 Congress workers staged a demonstration outside Raj Bhavan here on Friday to protest against the suspension of Berhampore MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from the Lok Sabha.
Half an hour after the protest began, police arrested 117 Congress workers. They were later released on bail.
The protesters said the suspension of Chowdhury, who is also the president of the Bengal unit of the Congress, was “undemocratic”.
“We hit the streets in Calcutta to let people know about how our leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was suspended in an undemocratic way. We also protested against Narendra Modi’s whataboutery over Manipur in his speech on the no-trust motion in Parliament on Thursday,” said Suman Pal, the president of the Congress’s Central Calcutta district committee.
Shouting slogans and holding party placards, Congress supporters marched towards Raj Bhavan. After a minor tussle with the police, the Congress workers were arrested.
Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had concluded his speech on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Prahlad Joshi, the parliamentary affairs minister, moved a resolution to send the matter of alleged misbehaviour and misconduct by Chowdhury to the privileges committee and suspended him from the House till a decision was taken on it. The resolution was passed by voice vote.
The Trinamul Congress said the suspension of Chowdhury from Parliament was the result of the BJP’s attempt to make him popular.
“Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is actually a blue-eyed boy of Modi. The BJP always wants to float the name of Adhir Chowdhury in a bid to give him some popularity. It is a political tactic of Narendra Modi to highlight Chowdhury as he is helping the BJP by fighting against Trinamul (in Bengal),” said Trinamul state general secretary Kunal Ghosh.
A senior Congress leader countered Ghosh and said: “No one needs to be told about how the Congress has fought against the RSS and the BJP. Adhirda is a torch-bearer of that legacy. The Congress has never compromised with the BJP but one cannot erase the truth that Trinamul shared power with the BJP on multiple occasions.”