Sayantika Bandyopadhyay, who was elected to the Assembly in a recent by-election on a Trinamul Congress ticket, wrote to governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Monday, expressing her wish to take oath before Speaker Biman Banerjee on the premises of the House.

The governor had asked Sayantika to attend the oath-taking ceremony at Raj Bhavan on June 26. She was elected from Baranagar.

“It has been two weeks since I won. I have only a year and a half to work for the people of Baranagar. However, as I have not yet been able to take my oath, I cannot start working as a legislator. Therefore, I was compelled to write a letter to the governor,” Sayantika, an actress, told the media after a lengthy discussion with the Speaker on Monday.

“I am a member of the Legislative Assembly, and I need to work from here. It is a general practice that in case of a by-election, the governor writes to the Speaker or the deputy speaker to administer the oath. That is why I wrote to the governor, requesting him to take initiative on this matter,” she added.

Rayat Hossain Sarkar, who also won a bypoll from the Bhagabangola Assembly segment, said he had got a WhatsApp message from Raj Bhawan stating that an invitation to the oath-taking ceremony had been sent to him via email but till Monday morning, he did not receive the same.

Speaker Banerjee said: “Oath-taking ceremony is a constitutional protocol and it is very unfortunate that we have to experience this kind of situation. If the governor is interested, he can come to the Assembly and conduct the oath-taking ceremony. We
will make all the arrangements. We do not have any problem.”

Constitutionally, the governor can administer the oath to an MLA. But by convention, the governor assigns the Speaker or the deputy Sepaker to do so.

The oath-taking of MLAs is usually held in the Assembly, but this time, sources said, the governor wanted the swearing-in of the two newly elected MLAs to take place at Raj Bhavan.